EXAMINING THE URBAN QUALITY OF LIFE IN GATED COMMUNITIES, CASE STUDY: NEW-CAIRO CITY

Abstract

Enjoying an acceptable level of quality of life is among the basic rights of residents in their communities', which in return requires determining the UQoL level of these neighborhoods and switching the current status of the unaccepted neighborhoods quality to standard, stable and healthy settlements. Urban Quality of Life (UQoL) is the main key in bridging the gap between residents' need and their living conditions. Therefore, QoL has recently been the concern of many planners, researchers and decision makers, with its subjective and objective aspects. A growing attention has been paid to the studies concerning the UQoL since the 1970s. Quality of life (QOL) is the general well-being of societies and individuals (Kõrreveski, 2011), it has quickly become a catch-all term, “Quality” is one of those words which are used generally and in publicity circles, it is frequently used to designate the attractiveness or the excellence of the product. QoL has recently become an interesting field of study to many researchers, however, it isn’t a new notion in the twentieth century, rather, it dates to ancient philosophers, for example “Aristotle” (384–322 BC) who wrote about “the good life” and “living well” beside explaining how public policy can help to enhance it. Quality of life is a complex term, that requires multiple approaches from different theoretical perspectives, there is no universally accepted definition of QoL, there are more than hundreds of definitions regarding this notion in literature and there have been many attempts to define the notion in the different disciplines, the major definition of QoL can be described through two concepts “well-being” which is related to the individuals and the fulfilment of the residents' expectations and needs , while the second concept is “good place” which is related to the location, the resources available to fulfil the residents' aspirations. Urban Quality of Life (UQoL) is derived from QoL but in urban domains (neighborhood, housing, community, Etc.) and experienced in the urban environment (work, social life, health…) therefore, it links the objective dimension related to the environment and the