Comparison of Objective and Mental Quality of Urban Life with Emphasis on Spatial Justice in Iranian Metropolis (Case Study: Hamadan City)

Urban areas are the main centers of economic, social and political growth in any country and have proven themselves to be the most attractive places for wealth, work, creativity and innovation. But at the same time, these areas also face significant challenges in the areas of physical and environmental degradation, social deprivation, insecurity, unemployment, housing shortages, traffic, and marginalization that greatly reduce the quality of urban life. However, policymakers and planners at international and national levels emphasize cities' ability to improve the quality of human life. This has made comparisons of the quality of urban life in cities more important to the study of urban justice that has received less attention in past research. Therefore, the present study, with a descriptive-analytical method, has attempted to analyze how urban perceptions of urban quality of life are compared with their residents' perceptions with a comparative approach. To this end, indicators of housing, utilities, urban transport, economic, education, recreation, health, safety and security, and overall life satisfaction were selected as research measures. Then, based on these indices, a 72-question questionnaire was designed and distributed in the central ring neighborhoods of Hamadan. Data were then compared using SPSS 19 and GIS software. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the quality of objective and subjective life in the study areas.