Indicators of Quality of Life to Compare Neighborhood Units and Regional Areas: A model to collect data in Turkish cities

Quality of life has been discussed in a wide range of contexts, including city and regional planning. Like other subjective parameters, it is hard to develop objective measures to understand “quality of life” for regions and specific urban settings.  Since there has been voluminous literature on quality of life, researchers focused on various parameters to measure quality of life. This study aims to review the literature on quality of life to extract the indicators of quality of life in urban and regional settings. It would put forward a model to collect data to measure and compare quality of life in neighborhood units and regional areas. The model could be applied in Turkish cities. The potential and limitations of this model will be discussed.   © 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: quality of life, micro/macro scale, neighbourhood unit, environment and behavior studie

A Model to Compare QoL in Turkish Cities

Quality of life (QOL) is an abstract concept. Like other subjective concepts, it is hard to develop objective measures to understand QOL in specific urban settings.  Since there has been a voluminous literature on QOL, researchers focused on parameters to measure QOL. This study aims to review the literature on QOL to extract the indicators of QOL in urban settings. It would put forward a model to collect data to measure and compare QOL in neighborhood units and regional areas. The model could be applied in Turkish cities. The potential and limitations of this model will be discussed. Keywords: Quality of life; micro / macro scale; neighborhood unit; environment and behavior studies.eISSN 2398-4279 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. https://doi.org/10.21834/ajqol.v3i11.11

The effect of environmental aesthetics on house prices

İnsanların barınma, güvenlik, konfor, sosyalleşme, kendini ifade etme ve estetik ihtiyaçlarını karşılayan konut, heterojen yapısını oluşturan özellikleri itibariyle, farklı disiplinler tarafından sıklıkla incelenmektedir. Konutun ekonomik boyutunu araştıran çalışmalar, genellikle konut fiyatlarını etkileyen faktörleri hedonik fiyat modeli ile açıklamaya; konutun estetik boyutunu araştıran mekânsal estetik odaklı çalışmalar ise konutun kendisinin ve çevresinin estetik özelliklerinin, kişinin algısı ve davranışlarını nasıl etkilediğini ölçmeye çalışmıştır. Her iki literatür de konutu kendi alanlarında incelemiş, mekânsal estetik ve konut fiyatları arasındaki ilişkiyi ihmal etmiştir. Bu çalışma konut ile ilişkili olan iki ayrı literatürü bir araya getirerek, çevre estetiğinin konut fiyatları üzerindeki etkisini, hedonik fiyat yöntemi ile ölçmeye çalışmaktadır. İzmir ili Karşıyaka ilçesinde seçilen bir bölgeden, 18 emlâk komisyoncusu ile anketler yapılmış ve 48 kiralanmış, 52 satın alınmış konut hakkında veri (fiyatı, yaşı, büyüklüğü sahip olduğu donatılar gibi) toplanmıştır. Bilgileri elde edilen konutların cephe ve çevrelerinin fotoğrafları çekilmiş ve bu fotoğraflar 101 lise öğrencisi tarafından mekânsal estetik ölçütleri (cephesinin ve çevresinin uyum veya karmaşıklık düzeyi gibi) açılarından değerlendirilmiştir. Emlâk komisyoncusu ve öğrenci anketlerinden elde edilen veriler, hedonik fiyatlandırma yöntemi ile analiz edilmiştir. Model, kiralanmış ve satın alınmış konutlar için ayrı ayrı uygulanmıştır. Sonuçlar, mekânsal estetik ölçütlerinden ‘konuta sahip olma isteğinin’ satın alma fiyatını; konutun çevresinin ‘karmaşık’ ve ‘bakımlı’ olma durumunun ise kiralanma fiyatını etkilediğini göstermiştir. Bu çalışma, konut ile ilgili iki farklı literatürü birleştirerek kentsel tasarım disiplini, iktisat bilimi, gayrimenkul ve emlâk sektörleri için veri teşkil etmesi ve fiziksel çevre faktörlerinin ekonomik değerlerini tartışmaya açması bakımından önemli olacaktır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Çevre estetiği, konut fiyatları, hedonik fiyat yöntemi.Housing has a heterogeneous nature to supply the human needs of sheltering, security, comfort, socialization, self-expression and 'aesthetics'. Because of this heterogeneous nature, the housing issue has been investigated in an interdisciplinary area by researchers who are specialized in urban design, economics, planning, and real estate markets. When dealing with economic value of houses, researchers have been aiming to identify the factors (such as physical characteristics related to neighborhood and house) that affect house prices via hedonic price method. When dealing with aesthetic value of houses, researchers have been aiming to understand how formal (complexity, coherence) and symbolic (naturalness, openness, safety, upkeep, nuisance) variables affect people's conceptual values (pleasantness, arousal, excitement, relaxing. However the relation between environmental aesthetics and housing prices has been neglected. This study aims to merge these two separate literatures and investigate the impact of environmental aesthetics on housing prices using the hedonic price metod. In Karsiyaka, Izmir, a survey was conducted with 18 randomly selected real estate agents. With this survey, data related to sale and rental prices and physical characteristics of 48 rented and 52 sold apartments' were collected. Then using the photographs of the buildings and their vicinity, an environmental aesthetic survey was prepared. Some apartments were in the same building. Thus, instead of 100 buildings, 85 were photographed. 101 high school students evaluated the aesthetic quality of each building via those photograph. The students were asked to evaluate the exterior quality of the building itself (pleasant, arousal, excited, complexity, the exterior quality of the building vicinity (pleasant, arousal, excited, relaxing, complexity, coherence, naturalness, openness, safety, upkeep, and nuisance), desirability, estimated price (sale and rental) and familiarity with building itself and its vicinity. It was impossible for a student to evaluate 85 buildings for a diversity of aesthetic measures; each student evaluated 17 buildings which were selected with stratified random sampling method. The buildings were shown to participants in different orders to minimize the order effect. The data derived from real estate agents and students were combined and analyzed with hedonic price model. This model was  applied separately for rented and sold houses with four different functions (linear, log-linear, linear-log, log-log) and the model that gives the highest R² value was selected as 'general model'. Then the aesthetic variables were eliminated from this general model to form the 'restricted model'. When restricted model and the general model were compared via F test, the results showed that aesthetic variables were important in explaining the variation in house prices (both sold and rental) significantly. This study indicates that environmental aesthetics shouldn't be ignored in research on house prices. The methodology used in this study might inspire future research to bring together the two separated (but also related) literatures; environmental aesthetics and house prices. A useful extension of this study might extend the sample size; apply the methodology in different regions and to different groups of houses. Perhaps, the impact of aesthetic variables on house prices changes by culture and economic status of potential buyers. Future studies might also investigate whether the value of aesthetic variables are more pronounced for higher value houses than lower value houses. The results should interest researchers from various disciplines including economics, real estate, planning and urban design. Keywords: Environmental aesthetics, house prices, hedonic price method.

Walking for Sustainable Living

There is an obvious but less stated link between walkability and sustainability. This study aims to highlight this link. Walkable communities help to cut greenhouse gas and other emissions by requiring less driving, improve residents' health by providing more opportunities for exercise, reduce crime by facilitating social interaction, support local economy by encouraging shopping in the neighborhood. Statistical data shows an increase in obesity and overweight rates and a decrease in walking rates throughout the world and in Asian countries. This study identifies the physical environmental parameters that relates to active living and encourage walking. Such research has often been conducted in developed countries. More research is on call for Asian cities. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd

Does the level of visual detail in virtual environments affect the user's spatial knowledge?

Researchers studying environmental perception and cognition in general, and human spatial ability in particular, have been using virtual reality as a promising tool. However, the virtual environments used in these studies showed variances in the levels of visual detail they offer. Yet, little is known about whether the level of visual detail in a virtual environment affects people's spatial performance. If the level of visual detail positively or adversely affects people's spatial performance, then researchers using virtual environments to investigate human spatial performance should account for the level of visual detail besides other factors of interest. This study aimed to compare people's spatial performance in two virtual environments that varied in their levels of visual detail ('low' and 'high'). Part of the Ohio State University Campus, US was simulated with a three-dimensional computer-modeling program, GTK Radiant. QUAKE III ARENA, a real-time three-dimensional environment-generator game engine, produced perspective views through the simulation. Forty-nine students studying in Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey participated in the study. After a learning phase, participants were asked to (I) estimate the direction to two nonvisible signs, (2) estimate the straight-line and walking distances to two nonvisible signs, and (3) draw a sketch map of the environment. Results showed that the spatial knowledge acquired in the 'low' and 'high' visual detail virtual environments were similar. If people's spatial behavior does not change in virtual environments with 'low' and 'high' visual details, then researchers, designers, and planners could save time and energy in developing virtual environments to understand human behavior