The Evaluation of Objective and Subjective Indicators in Order to assess the Quality of Life in Inner Urban Neighborhoods (Case Study: Semnan City)

The issue of quality of urban life was one of the first areas of study that, along with urban growth and its problems, gradually came to the attention of urban experts in the 1930s. The purpose of this study is to assess the quality of life in the inner neighborhoods of Semnan city and to prioritize them. Accordingly, two categories of objective and subjective indicators for assessing the quality of life were evaluated. Objective indicators include land price, access to urban centers, income and household size, average unit area, access to green space, access to public transportation, and construction quality. The subjective indicators include criteria such as security, sense of belonging to the neighborhood, water quality, social relations and attractiveness of the neighborhood. Entropy method was used to determine the weight and significance of each indicator. Finally, TOPSIS method was used to prioritize the neighborhoods. Given that the assessments obtained from measuring the subjective and objective dimensions of quality of life may not match the current situation in the neighborhoods of Semnan, the opinions of urban planning experts of the municipality of Semnan as well as owners of real estate agencies were used in the form of a questionnaire. The obtained results were comparatively compared using two methods. The values obtained from this comparison showed that in 17 neighborhoods out of the 28 inner neighborhoods of the city, the expert opinions matched the findings of TOPSIS method, while in the other neighborhoods no significant difference was observed among the findings.