Comparative Analysis of Social Sustainability in Old and New Residential Contexts of Cities Case Study: Old and New Context of Sabzevar City

Housing is the most important urban element in the sustainable development of the city. It is essential to pay attention to it because housing development, in addition to the environment, affects the economy, culture and social issues. Therefore, achieving sustainable housing in order to increase and improve the quality of life of the current and future generations is a serious matter, because today with the growing population, the need to build housing is increasing day by day. Therefore, achieving urban sustainable development and paying attention to sustainable housing can play a constructive role. In terms of social sustainability, sustainable housing is the one that, in addition to providing the necessary facilities and public services for a better human life, is in line with the culture, methods and traditions of its inhabitants and causes family stability, social growth, increasing the safety of people and specially to promote culture and peace of mind of family members. In this regard, the present study (with the aim of achieving indicators of sustainable social development) intends to study and compare indicators of social sustainability in two different residential contexts in Sabzevar city.

The present research has been done in two old and new contexts of this city. The central context has a population of 14843 people (5011 families) and Tovhid town which is located 5 km away in the northern part of Sabzevar city has a population of 18239 people (4933 families). The present study is applied-developmental in term of type, the method of research is descriptive-analytical and carried out in survey method (questionnaire). The statistical population in this research is two old and new contexts of Sabzevar city. The sample size according to Cochran's formula was obtained 750 people and the number of samples for the old contexts was 374 and the new ones was 376 samples, which were completed and conducted by stratified random sampling method. Data were analyzed using the one-sample t-test, comparison of means, Pearson and Chi-square, and multivariate regression. The value of alpha for all indicators is equal to. 0.74 which indicates that this scale has appropriate reliability.

The results show that the average score of the Housing Social Sustainability indicator in the central context is 2.924 and in Tovhid town is 3.206. Findings show that the average indicator of social sustainability of housing in the central context (old context) is significantly lower than average and in Tovhid town slightly higher than average. In other words, the indicators of social sustainability of housing in the Tovhid town are close to sustainability and are unsustainable in the central contexts. In the following, the two means are compared with the two assumptions of equality of variances and the assumption of inequality of variances. Given that the significance level of the F test is less than 0.05, the assumption of equality of variances is rejected. And since the level of significance in comparing the means with the assumption of inequality of variance is equal to zero and less than 0.05, it indicates that the difference between the two means is significant. Therefore, there is a significant difference between the studied contexts of Sabzevar city in terms of social sustainability of the residential environment. The results of the correlation coefficient show that there is a significant positive relationship between household income/ occupation/ length of stay/ ownership and housing social sustainability indicator in both the central context and Tovhid town. There is a significant negative relationship between education level and social sustainability indicator of housing in the central context. Thus, it can be said that people with higher education have more knowledge and information about the quality of municipal services as well as citizenship rights, and as a result, they expect to get more benefit from these services. Using the combined multiple regression model, the factors and indicators affecting the social sustainability of the two residential contexts were identified. The results indicate that the nine indicators included in the model, explain 72% of the changes in the dependent variable (social sustainability). In the central context, the Beta values (​in the above table) show that the security indicator has the greatest impact on the old social sustainability of Sabzevar (central) and after these, the indicators of housing quality and identity, in the second and third priority, will also have increasing effects on the social sustainability of the central context. In the new context, the Beta values ​​ (in the above table) show that the participation indicator has the greatest impact on the social sustainability of the new context of Sabzevar (Tovhid town), and after these identity and access to services indicators, in the second and third priority, will also have increasing effects on the social sustainability of the new context.

The results obtained in the studied contexts show that the two central and new residential contexts of Sabzevar are not the same in terms of social sustainability indicators. Indicators of place attachment and identity in the central context are more desirable than the new context. the security indicator is not appropriate in any of the contexts. Citizen health in the new context is more desirable due to cleaner air, lack of noise pollution and wider parks. This last indicator has made the residents of the town more cheerful. The housing quality indicator in Tovhid town is considered more desirable than the central context and in general, the average score of social sustainability in the new context is higher than the old one. Also, the results of multivariate regression in the central context show that the security indicator has the greatest impact on the social sustainability of that context and in the new context, the participation indicator has the greatest impact on the social sustainability of that context. Therefore, in order to achieve social sustainability of the two studied context, the two indicators of security and participation have an important place.