Browsing by Author "Koutonen, Elina"

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Student residents' perceptions of their neighbourhood - an evaluation of perceived residential environmental quality
(2019-12-16) Koutonen, Elina
Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
This study analysed, whether there are neighbourhood specific differences in how student residents’ perceive residential environmental quality and do the residents of the same neighbourhood have similar habitats with each other. Similarities were then evaluated: are they the connected to the demographical group of student residents or a specific neighbourhood or neighbourhood type. The study was quantitative, and the sample consisted of student residents’ living in various neighbourhoods around Helsinki metropolitan area. Data was collected with public participation GIS. To evaluate the perceived residential environmental quality, four quality factor categories were used: functional quality, social quality, appearances, and atmosphere. Each of these four categories were further divided into seven sub-categories. The analysis revealed that from student residents’ perspective the neighbourhoods of Helsinki metropolitan area can be divided into three neighbourhood types: central, campus, and suburban neighbourhoods. Student residents evaluated the overall environmental quality to be very good in both central and campus neighbourhoods. The residents’ of these two neighbourhood types also placed most of their important places within one kilometre radius of their home. The residents of suburban neighbourhoods evaluated their neighbourhoods residential environmental quality to be worse than the residents of the other two neighbourhood types, but none of the studied neighbourhoods received overall bad evaluations. East Helsinki was used as a case study to evaluate whether a neighbourhood with negative reputation would stand out from the other suburban neighbourhoods, but East Helsinki proved out to be just like any other suburban neighbourhood. Student resident related popular grievances were the perceived lack of local history and distance to important people. These two categories were evaluated quite negatively in all three neighbourhood types.