An Evaluation on Residential Satisfaction in Historic Urban Quarters: The Case of the Walled City, Famagusta

This study aims to evaluate residential satisfaction in historic urban quarters which are characterized by relatively higher architectural, cultural, and aesthetic values than nonhistoric areas. Nevertheless, historic urban quarters threat more by significant physical and social decay and undesirable environment, functional and physical obsolescence, and poor-quality buildings, material and constructions. These challenges lead to reduce the satisfactions’ levels of residents who live in historic urban quarters as their contemporary needs are not provided and living standards are usually lower. Consequently, to achieve this aim, this study provides extensively a list of factors on the basis of social, environment, economic, and culture dimensions to evaluate residential satisfaction within the contextual provisions of historic urban quarter of Walled City, Famagusta. Besides, this study collected 245 questionnaires from households residing in the historic urban quarters of the Walled City, Famagusta and also 167 households residing outside of the quarters to assess their perception of the identified factors, as well as examine the agreement levels in the opinions of the two participant groups. This study also used the mix method including both the qualitative and quantitative approaches to identify important factors of satisfaction based on resident’s perception, expectations, and experiences. Using principal component analysis (PCA), the results show that eight factors are only important from residents’ perceptions. Findings show that from the economic dimension, “Cost of housing”, “Tenure options” and “Cost of living within the Walled City” are the most important factors of satisfaction. From the social dimension, results showed the “Suitable management rules”, “Security/safety concerns” and “Level of social mix in housing environment” are the most important factors of satisfaction. From the environment dimension, results showed the “Open spaces and green areas” is the most important factor of satisfaction. From the culture dimension, results showed the “Suitability of housing to occupant’s culture” is the most important factor of satisfaction. The findings of this study will help to better understand the residents’ perceptions, expectations and experiences in historic urban quarter of the Walled City, Famagusta and are useful to housing policy decision-makers, urban planners, and municipalities to improve residential environments in line with the contemporary needs and expectations of residents. The results of this study also provide some insights that contribute to residential satisfaction literature as it opens a new window for further studies to test and apply the important factors in a case-study based survey of other historic houses and urban areas. Furthermore, it can be considered a crucial step in the sustainable development process, as identifying the determinants of residential satisfaction helps to satisfy the contemporary needs of residents in physically degraded and urban fabric deteriorated historical environments.