Comparison of Urban Housing Satisfaction in Modern and Traditional Neighborhoods in Edirne, Turkey

Abstract

Numerous cross-cultural studies have focused on certain aspects of urban housing conditions and their social consequences. However, most data on housing satisfaction is restricted to Western countries. Relatively little comparison has been made between these findings and those in developing areas where rapid urbanization is occurring and where concomitant problems in urban housing are emerging. Moreover, since primary cities of developing countries in the initial stage of economic development have received extensive attention in urban housing research, it would be interesting to examine a non-primary city where relatively good standards of living have been achieved. Thus, this study investigates people’s housing satisfaction in modern and historical neighborhoods. This paper addresses some conceptual and measurement issues related to the study of housing satisfaction. We build a conceptual model, which links the multiple dimensions of housing satisfaction, measured by a modified version of Bardo and Dokmeci’s (1992, Genetic, Social and General Psychology Monographs 118(3)) housing satisfaction scale, in a causal sense. An empirical examination of the model in traditional and modern neighborhoods reveals that social and environmental living conditions positively influence overall housing satisfaction. The results also indicate that the drivers of the social and environmental living conditions constructs differ between traditional and modern neighborhoods.