Abstract
This research investigates how access to eight urban amenities impacts people’s satisfaction with the urban environment in four new towns close to Seoul, the capital of South Korea. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) is used to analyze how the objective environment affects satisfaction with the urban environment through factors such as the perceived evaluation of the objective environment. The findings indicate that having easy access to urban parks, schools, shop** facilities, medical service facilities, and sports facilities is linked to higher levels of satisfaction with the urban environment. While some amenities indirectly affect satisfaction, shop** and sports facilities have a direct and indirect effect on overall satisfaction. The study also suggests that while people’s perception of crime prevention influences satisfaction with the urban environment, accessibility to police stations does not have a significant impact on satisfaction with either crime prevention or the urban environment, highlighting the need to identify other factors that influence satisfaction with crime prevention measures. Overall, the research provides evidence to support the importance of proximity to urban amenities, and identifies which amenities are crucial to enhance the quality of urban life.
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Acknowledgements
This research utilized some of the contents of ‘A Study on the Comprehensive Evaluation of the first and second Phase of New Towns (research number 2021-93)’, supported by the Land and Housing Research Institute (Republic of Korea).
Funding
This research was supported by the Chung -Ang University Research Grants in 2023 and this work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant, funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2022R1C1C1008627).
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Lee, C., Choi, S. & Yoon, J. The Influence of Access to Urban Amenities on Urban Environment Satisfaction: A Case Study of Four New Towns in the Vicinity of Seoul, South Korea. Applied Research Quality Life 18, 3111–3139 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10223-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10223-7