The Influence of Access to Urban Amenities on Urban Environment Satisfaction: A Case Study of Four New Towns in the Vicinity of Seoul, South Korea

This research investigates how access to eight urban amenities impacts people’s satisfaction with the urban environment in four new towns close to Seoul, the capital of South Korea. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) is used to analyze how the objective environment affects satisfaction with the urban environment through factors such as the perceived evaluation of the objective environment. The findings indicate that having easy access to urban parks, schools, shopping facilities, medical service facilities, and sports facilities is linked to higher levels of satisfaction with the urban environment. While some amenities indirectly affect satisfaction, shopping and sports facilities have a direct and indirect effect on overall satisfaction. The study also suggests that while people’s perception of crime prevention influences satisfaction with the urban environment, accessibility to police stations does not have a significant impact on satisfaction with either crime prevention or the urban environment, highlighting the need to identify other factors that influence satisfaction with crime prevention measures. Overall, the research provides evidence to support the importance of proximity to urban amenities, and identifies which amenities are crucial to enhance the quality of urban life.