Document Type : Research Article
Authors
1
Department of Urban Planning, Kerman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran
2
Department of Architecture, Kerman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kerman , Iran
3
Department of Urban Planning, Rafsanjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rafsanjan, Iran
Abstract
A B S T R A C T
In various cities, attention to urban livability, meaning the city's suitability for living and the compatibility of the environment with urban activities, is important. The present study seeks to extract the key indicators affecting urban livability in Kerman city. This research is applied and developmental in nature and has utilized qualitative and quantitative methods. For this purpose, in the first step, 24 initial factors affecting urban livability in Kerman were extracted through interviews with experts and specialists. Subsequently, using expert opinions gathered via a questionnaire and performing structural analysis in MICMAC software, the key indicators affecting urban livability in Kerman were identified. The selection of participants in the research was purposeful and conducted using the snowball sampling technique. In this regard, theoretical saturation was achieved with 14 participants, but interviews continued up to 16 individuals, and in the quantitative section, the questionnaire was administered to the same individuals. The fill rate in the structural analysis matrix was 87.67%, indicating a relatively high degree of influence among the indicators. The findings show that the indicators "mines around the city," "industrial towns," "various factories," "status of health and medical care," and "various transportation routes" are the key indicators affecting urban livability in Kerman. Among these, given that mines, industrial towns, and factories are economic indicators of livability, it can be said that focusing on the development and prosperity of existing job opportunities in Kerman city plays a key role in enhancing its livability, and it is necessary for urban management to plan for strengthening these job opportunities.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
In different cities, attention to urban livability is important, meaning that the city is suitable for living and the environment is compatible with urban activities. A livable city is a safe environment for living, has a competitive economy, and includes a high quality of life and environmental sustainability. Given its concept, which is "achieving development with minimal resource consumption while ensuring the well-being of humans and the earth," some consider it synonymous with the concept of sustainability, while others consider it related to the concepts of quality of place, quality of life, and healthy society. Despite the fact that achieving a livable city is very important, there is no vision of a livable city in many cities. Among these cities is the city of Kerman, which in one of the most recent comments on the situation of Kerman from the perspective of the authorities, emphasized the poor condition of Kerman, and numerous problems have been raised for Kerman, including "dead social life," and various environmental, economic, social, physical, and infrastructure problems have been mentioned for it. The present study seeks to extract key indicators affecting urban livability in Kerman city.
Methodology
The present study is an applied and developmental study and uses mixed qualitative and quantitative methods. For this purpose, in the first step, 24 primary factors affecting urban livability in Kerman were extracted through interviews with experts. The validity of the interviews was also confirmed through content validity, based on which the experts confirmed the comprehensiveness of the indicators. Content validity ensures that the indicators are comprehensive and cover all aspects of the subject. In this regard, the selection of participants in the study was purposeful and was carried out using the snowball technique; so that initially 4 experts were selected based on the indicators of familiarity with the concepts of livability, structural analysis and futures studies, the city of Kerman, and readiness and availability for cooperation, and after interviewing them, the primary indicators affecting urban livability in Kerman were extracted. Although theoretical saturation was achieved with 14 participants and no new indicators were proposed, the interviews continued until 16 people. Among these 16 people, 4 were academic members of urban planning and 12 were researchers in the fields of futures studies and livability. All participants also had a good understanding of the city of Kerman. In the second step, questionnaires were presented to experts to give scores from 0 to 3 to the 24 identified factors in the form of a structural analysis matrix based on the degree of influence they have on each other. Then, in the third step, considering that the best way to aggregate the opinions of experts is to use the mode of opinions, the mode of each of these data was extracted using Excel software and these numbers were entered into the Micmac software to identify key indicators affecting the livability of Kerman.
Results and discussion
The degree of filling in the structural analysis matrix was 87.67 percent, which indicates a relatively high impact of the indicators on each other. The findings show that the indicators of "mines around the city", "industrial towns", "various factories", "health and treatment status" and "various transportation routes" are key indicators affecting urban livability in Kerman. Previously, various studies that have examined livability have mainly examined livability in the present time using different statistical methods, while Oshnavii Nooshabadi and Mohammad Ebrahimi (2022) for the city of Kashan and Ali Akbari and Akbari (2018) for the metropolis of Tehran have used a method similar to the present study, namely structural analysis, to identify livability indicators. Therefore, the present study is in line with them in terms of method and the results of the present study are comparable to the results of their work. Meanwhile, the health and medical status is a key indicator that has also been mentioned in the research of Oshnavii Noushabadi and Mohammad Ebrahimi (2022) for the city of Kashan. If we also consider the indicators of industrial towns and various factories from an economic perspective, it is in line with the economic dimension proposed by Ali Akbari and Akbari (2018) for the Kerman metropolis, and this indicates the overall importance of the key indicators mentioned in urban livability.
Conclusion
In general, livability has various dimensions including economic, social, environmental, physical and managerial, and these dimensions and their indicators have different importance in different cities. In this regard, in identifying the key indicators affecting livability in Kerman city, it was noteworthy that among the key indicators affecting livability in Kerman, there are also various economic (industrial parks, various factories), environmental (mines around the city), physical and infrastructure (asphalt roads and railways and airports) and social (health and treatment status) dimensions. With a closer look at these indicators, it can be said that what can cause the continuity and prosperity of livability in Kerman city are indicators that are closely related to people's employment. This result is important because, given that mines, industrial towns, and factories are economic indicators of livability, it can be said that focusing on the development and prosperity of existing job opportunities in Kerman city plays a key role in promoting its livability, which requires urban management to plan to strengthen these job opportunities.
Funding
There is no funding support.
Authors’ Contribution
The authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved the content of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.
Keywords
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