A Reflection on the Process of the Contemporary Urban Space Transformation with an Emphasis on the Concept of Lifestyle

The nature of citizens’ social and personal relationships is a derivative of their lifestyle. Today, the development of digital platforms and the rapid growth of technology have brought about extensive changes in people's lives, insomuch that their lifestyle is now completely different from what it was in the past. The present article is an attempt to recognize the factors that shape the lifestyle and examine the theories that support the idea to present a comprehensive reading of the concept of lifestyle. Another objective of the study is to identify the characteristics of today's lifestyle and how it influences the urban space. To this end, the research employed the meta-synthesis method. In the first step, of the total 83 relevant sources, 37 were acquired, screened, and selected using the assessment method. Then, the selected sources were coded in MAXQDA 2020 focusing on the research question. A total of 95 codes were extracted and categorized into 4 groups: “characteristics of today's lifestyle”, “forming factors”, “functions”, and “approaches”. According to the findings, the factors forming lifestyle are as follows: Human, temporal, and environmental factors. The most important and influential component of lifestyle is the temporal factor. Due to the alterations in the temporal aspect, nowadays such characteristics as individualism, considerable power of choice, market orientation, and new behavioral patterns are the indices of people's lifestyles. These characteristics have caused alterations in urban spaces such as weakened social interactions, pluralism, status symbols, visualization of signs, and a multiplicity of shopping malls and leisure centers.