Factors Underlying Life Quality in Urban Contexts: Evidence from an Industrial City (Arak, Iran)

Musa Pazhuhan, Saeed Zanganeh Shahraki, Niloofar Kaveerad, Sirio Cividino, Matteo Clemente and Luca Salvati
Additional contact information
Musa Pazhuhan: Graduated from University of Tehran and Independent Researcher, Tehran 1418733516, Iran
Saeed Zanganeh Shahraki: Department of Human Geography, University of Tehran, Tehran 1417466191, Iran
Niloofar Kaveerad: Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch, Arak P.O. Box 38135/567, Iran
Sirio Cividino: Department of Agriculture, University of Udine, Via del Cotonificio 114, I-33100 Udine, Italy
Matteo Clemente: Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest System (DIBAF), Tuscia University, Via S. Camillo De Lellis, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy
Luca Salvati: Department of Economics and Law, University of Macerata, Via Armaroli 43, I-62100 Macerata, Italy

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: Cities play a vital role in local development providing a high education level, specialized jobs and advanced services. When assessing living conditions and wellbeing in cities, economic indicators alone are generally unable to evaluate the inherent complexity of the ‘quality of life’ issue in urban environments. With rapid urbanization, shortage of infrastructures and services emerged in metropolitan regions of developing countries, leading to disadvantaged settlements, urban poverty, lower citizens’ satisfaction, and an overall decline in life quality. Based on these premises, the present study illustrates a subjective investigation of life quality in an emerging economy such as Iran, focusing on Arak, the fourth largest industrial pole of the country. Based on a literature review on quality of life in industrial cities of emerging economies, subjective indicators of citizens’ satisfaction on living quality in Arak were identified and quantified using empirical results from a field survey. Results of our study show that the overall satisfaction for living quality in Arak is rather low, reaching the lowest rank in the issues of environmental sanitation and public transportation. Lack of investments in urban infrastructure justifies the low citizens’ perception of life quality in Arak city. The paper concludes outlining the urgent need of homogeneous and comparable macro- and micro-data on multiple aspects of quality of life at both city-level and metropolitan-level in emerging economies.

Keywords: field survey; subjective indicators; industrial city; emerging economies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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