Evaluation of the Perception of Urban Quality of Life Transformed By The Covid-19 Pandemic in the Scope of Urban Configuration

Abstract

Urban quality of life is a multidimensional concept that includes the research field of the discipline of urban planning, which states the satisfaction of the people with the physical, social, cultural and economic conditions in the environment they live in, is evaluated using objective and subjective criteria. It has been revealed by literature research that the urban quality of life affects the physical and mental health of the citizens. It changes under the influence of built environment features, urban policies and breaks that occur in the city. The Covid19 pandemic, which has affected the whole world since 2019, has also been effective in changing the expectations of city residents from cities, the perception of quality of life, urban space usage habits and lifestyles. This research aims to reveal the transformation that has occurred in academic research on the urban quality of life and the perceptions of citizens regarding this issue with the Covid-19 pandemic. For this purpose, literatüre researches conducted before and during the pandemic were scanned with the keywords "satisfaction, life satisfaction, quality of life, livability, urban quality of life, urban life satisfaction" and "urban planning, city planning" using the SCOPUS database. With this method, the distribution of the studies in the database by years (1977-2022), how they deal with the issue and how the urban quality of life indicators used in the researches have changed, and the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the literature has been introduced. In addition, how urban users’' perceptions of urban quality of life changed during the Covid-19 period were questioned through in-depth interviews with 30 randomly selected people in the city center of Ankara. In these interviews, the change in the perceptions of the users' urban quality of life, life satisfaction and the habits of using urban spaces were examined by asking questions. According to the results of the in-depth interviews, the living environment, health and general life satisfaction of the city users decreased; neighborhood relations satisfaction did not change; social interaction with family, friends and neighbors and frequency of participation in sociocultural activities decreased; It has been observed that the daily transportation mode and urban space types preferred by people have changed. According to the literature research results, it has been determined that 42.4% of the studies in the field of urban quality of life were carried out in the last 6 years (2022-2016), and 65.3% of them were carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic period (2022-2019). It is thought that this research will add a different dimension to the urban planning literature in terms of revealing the transformation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in academic research on the quality of life and in the perceptions of urban users about the quality of their living environment.