Assessing resident's satisfaction regarding housing environment - Case study Radauti municipality

         Housing, associated in the specialty literature with the habitat, is a dynamic process, circumscribed to human existence that is significantly influenced by the technological progress of the last decades. The access to information, the alert pace of life in the urban environment, the multiplication of population concerns, the need for privacy have created new preferences for housing and new expectations and needs of the residents in relation to the utilities, facilities and services available whitin the urban settlements. In consenquence, constant changes regarding housing-needs justifies the measures to assess the living conditions within a settlement.

       The present article proposes an empirical analysis on the perception of the population on the conditions under which the housing is carried out in the city of Radauti, a city with a population of 34,692 inhabitants, which after the fall of the communist regime undergoes a process of urban regeneration, like many other small medium-sized cities in the ex-socialists states of Eastern Europe. The research used the method of sociological inquiry by applying a questionnaire to a sample of 350 inhabitants with a permanent residence in the municipality of Radauti who were selected from the lists of citizens with voting rights from the 15 existing constituencies, following the representation of the three age categories. The research related to criteria associated with the characteristics of the housing environment and to the criteria regarding the accessibility of some utilities and services, for each category being selected variables that can be improved by involving the local administration (characteristics of buildings and housing, existence and access to utilities, the arrangement of the parking lots, of the communication paths, of the spaces for pedestrian movement, the urban image etc.). 

        The interpretation of results allowed the association of the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the respondents with concrete aspects of the settlement, which made it possible to individualize the generating factors of some situations that were negatively appreciated by the population. This fact confirmed the hypothesis that there is an important gap between the needs of the population and the concrete situation of the facilities, utilities and services to which the population has access, emphasizing the unattractive aspects of the living environment and the anticipated responses of the users to the future conditions. Research has also indicated that the evaluation of the population’s satisfaction regarding the main aspects which define housing in Radauti is a useful feed-back for policies makers indicating the concrete situations in which it could intervene to increase the quality of housing within the settlement.

 

Key words: housing quality,  population needs, assessment, satisfaction, housing environment