Evaluating and Rating the Quality of Life in Mazandran Province Using SAW and AHP Techniques

Quality of life is not a novel concept and denotes various meanings in varied domains. Generally, quality of life can be measured using objective and subjective indicators in various aspects. These aspects can subsume such fields as nutritional, educational, hygiene, security and leisure time. On the other hand, nowadays in development planning literature, the issue of quality of life is constantly being considered, by development planners and managers, as a basic principle.
Theoretical Framework: Quality of life is not a novel concept. Geographers have always been trying to optimize the mutual relationship between man and nature in order to improve his life. The concept of quality of life denotes various meanings in varied domains. Urban quality of life can be calculated in terms of a person, a family, or a society. According to World Health Organization (WHO), quality of life is people’s perception of their status in life in terms of culture, value systems in which they live, goals, expectations, norms, and priorities. In 2005, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) mentioned 9 factors in their studies of quality of life: 1. material wellbeing, 2. health, 3. political stability and security, 4. family life, 5.community life, 6. climate and geography, 7. job security, 8. political freedom, and 9. gender equality.
Two types of indicators for evaluating urban quality of life have been more agreed upon by experts. First are objective indicators, referring to tangible aspects of urban life such as: number of hospitals in a city, unemployment rate, crime rate, and green spaces. Second group of indicators are subjective ones which can be measured qualitatively and include such factors as: citizen’s degree of satisfaction with health services, employment opportunities, security, and accessibility of green spaces. In the first approach, secondary data are used for developing the indicators and, to a large degree, it hinges upon the statistics gathered from the city in question in various years. In the second approach, using subjective indicators instead of secondary data, citizen’s opinions are directly analyzed and their degree of satisfaction is evaluated from various aspects.
The present study is a developmental-practical one and was conducted using a combination of descriptive, documentary, and analytical methods. The collected data on 14 indicators for the cities of Mazandaran province has been selected for this study. The indicators included: population density, ratio of divorce to the total number of marriages, unemployment rate, literacy rate, electricity, water, gas and telephone users’ ratio to the total population, the ratio of urban population to the entire population, number of murder and involuntary manslaughter lawsuits, number of residential houses built using steel structure, number of residential houses built using concrete, province’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and life expectancy. For weighing the indicators, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and for evaluating the quality of urban life multi-attribute decision making through Simple Additive Weighing (SAW) were used. The important point in decision-making indices of these models is that positive and negative indicators are used simultaneously in the matrix. In order to make various measuring indicators comparable, normalization was used to make indices dimensionless and additive.
Findings and The findings reveal that Sari County is in the first place, Amol in the second place, Babol in the third place, and counties of Juybar, Savadkuh, and Galugah, with a huge gap, occupy the bottom of the list regarding the urban quality of life in Mazandaran province. The huge gap in quality of life among the urban districts of this province is a testament to the great inequality in accessibility and concentration of facilities and urban services in some counties along with the lack of urban facilities and inattention of authorities in some smaller counties of Mazandaran province.
Conclusion and Suggestions: Urban quality of life is a new concept and an interdisciplinary, multidimensional science which, by the prevalence of urbanism in the 20th century and its aftermath in various fields, gradually took shape under the influence of various theories, movements, and schools of thought. Finding indicators, combining indices of assessment, and evaluating changes in urban quality of life are the most important issues concerning quality of life. While subjective indicators are figures and statistics regarding real conditions of citizens’ lives; objective indicators, on the other hand, deal with citizens’ mental, psychological perceptions, and their degree of satisfaction with urban life. The findings reveal that, regarding the disproportionate rates of urban quality of life in counties of Mazandaran province and for the purpose of moving towards integrated urban management, considering the inextricable role of sustainable development in resolution of problems facing human society and bringing welfare and comfort, correct and comprehensive planning, for decentralizing urban facilities and services together with orienting development plans towards economic evolution and creation of new job opportunities should be considered.