Does urban stress correlate with socio-economic quality of life in Leiden

Since urban stress is the mental or physical tension caused through living in cities, I expect residents in old neighborhoods to have the greatest stress, thus, less satisfied with the quality of life in their neighborhood. On the other hand, newer neighborhoods, have a higher quality of life and less stress. Urban stress correlates with socio-economic quality life in Leiden in that it affects the environment in terms of noise and landscape view, parking spaces are created increasing congestion in the city, crime increases due to increase in population yet there is no increase in jobs, over crowdedness, little if any relationship with neighbors and no satisfaction with services Geographical Context: The Netherlands is a country in Western Europe. Leiden is a city and a municipality which is located in The Netherlands in the South Holland Province.

Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn at a distance of about 20 kilometers from The Hague to its south. Noise at night Another source of primary data was collected, however, the opinions were more from the students conducting the research than the residents of the neighborhood. This was done using equidistant points in each neighborhood for the survey to be taken. Several things has been evaluated such as: 1. Building Quality 2. Built Environment 3. Economic factors included average house value, average salary and high income percentage were taken into account. Affluence Points are going to be awarded to each indicator and at the end the sum of all points is going to be the neighborhood’s quality of life points. The higher the quality of life the higher the number of points awarded A- Average House value: Average house value show how much wealth is in the neighborhood.

People who are able to afford expensive houses should be able to afford more luxurious lifestyles. In the table below, the average house value per neighborhood is shown. Also, having a higher income not only means that a person can live in a bigger and a more expensive house but also, that the person would also be able to afford essentials and also more luxurious products such as having a car, having more fancy furniture. Which means that there is an expected pattern which the two maps should show. The relation should be positive. Using these two indicators a list could be deduced by the affluence for each neighborhood. The list is going to made using both the average house value and the average income per person.

6 Older "inner city" 6 2 Zilwijk zuid 2 Newer suburban 5 3 Leedewijk Noord 2. 6 Newer suburban 5 4 De kooi 2. 8 older "inner city" 5 5 zilwijk Noord 3 Newer suburban 4 6 leedewijk Zuid 3. 2 Newer suburban 4 7 Noorderkwartier 3. 2 Older "inner city" 4 8 Slaaghwijk 3. Order Name of the neighborhood Average grade awarded Age of the neighborhood points awarded 1 Leedewijk Noord 1. 7 Newer suburban 1 2 leedewijk Zuid 1. 8 Newer suburban 1 3 Rijndijkbuurt 2 Older "inner city" 2 4 Stationskwartier 2. 1 older "inner city" 2 5 Zilwijk Zuid 2. 3 Newer suburban 2 6 Burgemeesterwijk 2. 9 Older "inner city" 2 7 Noorderkwartier 3. 2 Older "inner city" 3 8 Zilwijk Zuid 3. 3 Newer suburban 3 9 Noorderkwartier 3. 6 Older "inner city" 3 10 Slaaghwijk 4 Older "inner city" 4 Table 6 C- Noise at night: Noise at night is a great indicator of how much urban stress a person may experience at night, because usually loud sounds are irritating to residents who live in the neighborhood. I expect that there would be some noise problems at Stationskwartier due to the presence of the train and also at some old “inner cities”.

This may be due to the high buildings which are built just after the city acting like a noise block to the rest of the neighborhood. The table shows the overall points for quality of life: order Name of neighborhood Points for quality of life: total Points for urban stress: total 1 Burgemeesterswijk 17 5 2 Zilwijk Zuid 14 7 3 Leedewijk Noord 13 5 4 Zilwijk Noord 12 8 5 Leedewijk Zuid 11 5 6 Rijndijkbuurt 11 6 7 De Kooi 11 8 8 Stationskwartier 10 6 9 Noorderkwartier 10 8 10 Slaaghwijk 10 10 Table 8 The following scatter graph showing the overall quality of life versus urban stress proves that urban stress in Leiden neighborhood increases with decrease in quality of life. Figure 2: Scatter chart showing relationship between quality of life and urban stress in Leiden Figure 3: A chart showing the overall points for quality of life against the points for urban stress Figure 4: A chart showing overall points for urban stress against points for quality of life Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient: Name Overall points for quality of life Rank 1 Overall points for urban stress Rank 2 d d2 Burgemeesterswijk 17 10 5 1 9 81 Zilwijk Zuid 14 9 7 6 3 9 Leedewijk Noord 13 8 5 2.

25 Zilwijk Noord 12 7 8 7 0 0 Leedewijk Zuid 11 5. 25 Rijndijkbuurt 11 5. As a result, I conclude that there is no significant correlation between the overall points for quality of life and urban stress in Leiden. Conclusion When starting this assignment, I believed that the age factor of a neighborhood highly relates to the quality of life and urban stress in the neighborhood. Since urban stress is the mental or physical tension caused through living in cities, I expected residents in old neighborhoods to have the greatest stress, thus, less satisfied with the quality of life in their neighborhood. I looked at 10 neighborhoods in Leiden analyzing their quality of life and urban stress. In order to effectively evaluate the quality of life between neighborhoods, I chose to use questionnaires regarding the quality of life and urban stress using several indications including relationship with neighbor, satisfaction with services provided in the neighborhood, likelihood of crime, over crowdedness, enough parking spaces available, enough public transport, and noise at night.

Having a higher income not only meant that a person could live in a bigger and a more expensive house but also, that the person would also be able to afford essentials and also more luxurious products such as having a car, having more fancy furniture. The build environment indicator provided a number to each location according to: adequate parking possibility, well-kept roads, pavements, bike paths and building density. The indicator showed Burgermeesterwijk had the best built environment while the worst was Stationkwartier. Due to the fact that the main train station and the University of Leiden are located in Stationkwartier there are a lot of cars parked there and a lot of students who rent apartments there. Therefore the number of buildings increased while the number of houses decreased creating a high building density.