Urban Vitality Conditions and Neighborhood Satisfaction in a Latin American City: The Case of Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Urban vitality and neighborhood satisfaction are areas of great interest within the field of urban studies, as a measure of the attractiveness of a city and as an evaluation that residents make of their living environments. Using survey and geospatial data from the Longitudinal Social Study of Chile (2019) and the JANE Index (2021), this study performs regression analysis to examine the relationship between urban vitality and neighborhood satisfaction. Through a set of variables that evaluate the neighborhood such as safety, connectivity, green and recreational areas, cleanliness and beauty, proximity to the main activity, and proximity to commercial areas, we analyze the relationship with six conditions for urban vitality. These conditions are features objectively measured from the built environment, which provide information about concentration of people and buildings, diversity in land use, contact opportunity provided by the urban fabric, presence of old buildings, accessibility to the public transport, and the distance to large infrastructures that act as border vacuums for people. The results show that most conditions for urban vitality are significant predictors of neighborhood satisfaction. Not all components of urban vitality, however, are positively associated with higher neighborhood satisfaction, as attributes such as concentration and satisfaction with green and recreational areas in the neighborhood are in fact negatively correlated. Conclusions show the importance of including subjective factors in projects meant to transform the built environment in search of increased vitality.