City dwellers’ perception of urban environment in Bhubaneswar, India and its correlates

Abstract

This study is an attempt to explore the perception of city dwellers on different aspects of urban environment in the city of Bhubaneswar in India, and analyze its socioeconomic correlates. The survey carried out for the purpose and the composite indices computed afterwards indicated that migrants were less satisfied with the urban environment and services, in comparison to the natives. It was clearly evident that there existed a wide disparity in service provision to slum and non-slum households. As regard the road transport service, the least satisfied were the affluent residents of the good residential area Interestingly, the respondents did not think lack of public transportation facility as a major problem, which could be attributed to the increasing tendency of using personal vehicles by them. It was also marked that with increasing age of the respondents, level of satisfaction with urban environment came down. Older people, who had been exposed to better environment earlier, were relatively unhappy with its current state.

City dwellers' perception of environmental hazards and risks in Dhaka city

“…In most urban cities of developing countries, the ever-growing population and its evolving nature have resulted in dramatic shifts in the current pattern of land use in and around those cities, thereby impacting the environment of the city (Rout and Bhagat 2012). Because urbanization has now become one of the world's major environmental challenges (Dewan et al 2012).…”

“…Due to the absence of sustainable *Corresponding author: <shahadat.baser@gmail.com>. urban environment maintenance strategies, the cities are facing difficulties related to environment pollution, transport system, housing issues, health infrastructure and other civic amenities and services (Rout and Bhagat 2012). Notwithstanding, the urban areas particularly have the high potentiality of losses from natural hazards ( Dewan et al 2012, Brecht et al 2013 owing to uncontrollable growth of population and mismanagement of urban services (Bhattarai andConway 2010, Islam et al 2014).…”