Urban Livability: Concept, Principles, Aspects and Parameters

Today cities are the main place of work and life of the majority of human. More than 50% of 6 billion people in the world live in cities. Hence, paying attention to the quality of life ,conditions ,facilities and needs of the urban inhabitants is a vital issue. Considering numerous problems of the cities, a variety of approaches have been proposed in order to promote and improve the conditions of life in cities of which urban livability is one of the most recent. Nowadays, in most developed countries , livability has been developed and considered as a guiding principle within the framework of discourse of sustainability in urban planning and policies .This paper ,while introducing livability as the dominant approach in urban planning in the contemporary world, analyzes the theoretical origin, affecting views and its theoretical-practical literature .This research is fundamental-theoretical in respect of the objective and the data have been provided in library-documentary method . The findings of papers indicate that considering today’s conditions of most cities of the world, there is a general agreement concerning significance and necessity of recognition, analysis and defining urban livability in different aspects .However, there is no collective agreement on its definition, principles, parameters and indices. The main reason for difference in this case can be in the direct reliance of this concept on local and time conditions and beyond all, the social, economic and managerial ground of the target community.