Urban space in the local community assessments: measurement in Vologda and Cherepovets

The city development target is to ensure sustainable growth in the number of citizens by improving the quality of life and creating conditions for self-realization, including through the formation of a comfortable urban environment. In the process of forming a comfortable urban environment, it is important to focus on the subjective opinion of the local population, as well as its involvement in the solution of topical issues of urban development, which actualizes the scientific and practical interest of the study. The work used general scientific and empirical methods of studying the urban environment, analyzed scientific literature, as well as the results of a sociological survey in two major cities of the Vologda Region - Vologda and Cherepovets. The sample size in each of the cities amounted to 800 respondents over 18 years old. We revealed that most of the population of large cities assesses the living conditions as favorable. Among the most acute problems residents of large cities include the lack of parking spaces in yards, poor quality of drinking water, poor condition of sidewalks and roads, as well as pollution of the adjacent territory after walking pets. At the same time, the Cherepovets residents better assess the urban environment in answering a number of questions than the Vologda residents. In both large cities there is a tendency of the local community’s lack of interest in discussing urgent urban problems and ways to solve them. The materials of the article can be useful to the authorities in identifying the problems and factors of development of a quality urban environment.