Abstract

Background and purpose

In the past decades, the concepts of quality of life and livability have been considered among the most important planning principles for settlements and have been of considerable importance in order to achieve sustainable development. The need to pay attention to this issue is of double importance despite the unbalanced population structure and spatial inequalities in our country. In the meantime, small cities are one of the most important residential areas in developing countries, where the low livability rate has led to emptying and a significant decrease in population. One of the effects of population decline in urban areas is the fading of identity in these destinations because people who migrate from their departure points gradually lose their sense of belonging to that place and find belonging to their departure destinations. On the other hand, residents of areas with a low livability level, due to service and living inadequacies, are more trying to meet their individual needs, and numerous problems and social inequalities are an obstacle to the formation of a unified social identity in these destinations. Therefore, in the current research, it is assumed that the decrease in livability will affect the fading of social identity in cities. In this regard, the aim of this research is to explain and summarize the most important indicators of livability for the small city of Songhor and measure these indicators on the identity of this city. In this regard, qualitative and quantitative methods were used.

methods

First, by analyzing the content of domestic and foreign articles, the general indices of livability were extracted as 94 factors. In order to localize and determine the most relevant indicators for the purpose of this research, the results of the first stage were summarized in the form of a Delphi process and a survey of experts. In addition, the effects of livability components on the social identity of the city were also investigated, and in this regard, multiple linear regression analysis was used in Spss software. At this stage, the findings from the Delphi stages were prepared in the form of a questionnaire and distributed and collected among the citizens. The statistical community is the city of Songhor and the sample size includes 200 residents of different neighborhoods of the city of Songhor.

Discussion and findings

In the content analysis stage, after the identification of open codes and their frequency, following the inductive approach, open codes were categorized according to their semantic affinity and 43 sub-themes were extracted from the integration and integration of related codes. Sub-themes were also categorized into 7 main themes. Further, the results of the Delphi steps showed that livability indicators in Songhor city are in 7 general categories: "Urban Management", "Environmental Features", "Social Features", "Urban Services and Infrastructure", "Economic Features". ", "cultural characteristics" and "climatic characteristics" can be formulated. In the last stage, in order to measure the effects of livability components on the social identity of the cities, the results showed that the 3 economic, cultural and environmental dimensions have higher correlation with the social identity of the city with the effect coefficients of 0.468, 0.286 and 0.209, respectively. The components of climatic features were also removed from the model due to the lack of significant value.

Conclusion

In evaluating the role of livability components on the social identity of the city, we came to the conclusion that the economic, cultural and environmental components have the highest correlation with the social identity of the city. The results of this research are especially important in the current situation where cities and settlements are seriously facing an identity crisis and the low level of livability components.