Modelling and Measuring Quality of Urban Life : Housing, Neighbourhood, Transport and Job
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Modelling and measuring quality of urban life : housing, neighbourhood, transport and job Citation for published version (APA): Aminian, L. (2019). Modelling and measuring quality of urban life : housing, neighbourhood, transport and job. Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. Document status and date: Published: 30/04/2019 Document Version: Publisher’s PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers) Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. 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If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement: www.tue.nl/taverne Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at: [email protected] providing details and we will investigate your claim. Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 Modelling and Measuring Quality of Urban Life Housing, Neighborhood, Transport and Job PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr.ir. F.P.T. Baaijens, voor een commissie aangewezen door het College voor Promoties, in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 30 april 2019 om 11:00 uur door Lida Aminian geboren te Teheran, Iran i Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotoren en de samenstelling van de promotiecommissie is als volgt: voorzitter: prof.dr.ir. E.S.M.Nelissen 1e promotor: prof.dr. H.J.P. Timmermans 2e promotor: prof.dr. S. Rasouli leden: prof.dr. D.F. Ettema (Universiteit Utrecht) prof.dr.ir. B.de Vries dr.ir. A.D.A.M. Kemperman Het onderzoek of ontwerp dat in dit proefschrift wordt beschreven is uitgevoerd in overeenstemming met de TU/e Gedragscode Wetenschapsbeoefening. ii Modelling and Measuring Quality of Urban Life Housing, Neighbourhood, Transport and Job iii A catalogue record is available from the Eindhoven University of Technology Library ISBN: 978-90-386-4739-5 NUR: 955 Cover design: Lida Aminian, Reza Saberi photograph: Lida Aminian Printed by the Eindhoven University Press, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Published as issue 268 in de Bouwstenen series of the faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning of the Eindhoven University of Technology Copyright© Lida Aminian, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this document may be photocopied, reproduced, stored, in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any from or by any means whether, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author. iv “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise so I am changing myself.” Rumi v vi Preface Now since this journey is coming to end, I can see it more clearly with all its ups and downs that made me physically and emotionally more resilient compared to the past. Taking a step back in time, I clearly remember the day I received the prompt reply from Prof. Harry Timmermans in response to my email and my interest in doing research in his department. The main question he asked me after looking at my CV was: ” You are not trained as a researcher, so what are the challenges?”. I knew, doing PhD in urban systems and planning would not be an easy route to take for someone with an architecture background, but at that time I was not totally aware of all the dimensions of his question. Now, at the end of this scenario, I can reply to his question differently as I touched all those challenges and even more. The main challenge is adopting to a new lifestyle. As an architect, I used to work in a team, have a lot of field work, social interactions and discussions with my team members. However, doing research needs a lot of focus, so the isolation is inevitable. Although some scholars love the feeling of autonomy this gives, some prefer more contacts. This is specially more challenging for those whose social circle is relatively limited due to long distances to family and close friends. Learning the strategies to adopt to this new life-style has probably been the biggest milestone in my personal growth during this episode of my life. The second challenge for someone with a background in architecture and design is to learn the opposite way of presenting ideas. While architecture students learn to develop their ideas and ambiguity can be part of an innovative design, in academic research you should write your ideas in an consistent and clear way, as accurate as possible. The third challenge is related to the nature of the urban planning field. People from almost all engineering fields, geography, social science, economics and applied sciences can contribute to urban planning. However, the most confusing part is that in the Netherlands (and probably some other countries) all of them gathered under the flag of architecture in the faculty of built environment, while their focus is quite different. This can easily deviate one’s initial plan and put one in a totally new world. vii Despite all these challenges in the beginning, at some point I realized that I can benefit a lot from my background and the new expertise by formulating new types of interdisciplinary research, bridging design and behavioral science. Working on the “Quality of Urban Life” topic gave me the opportunity to improve this potential. The topic was really interesting in a sense that it connected me to two different directions, one was happiness and well-being and the other concerned the various domains of the built environment. For the first one, I had to conduct an extensive literature study, which was very informative for me and the insights were useful for my own life. It is very rare that you could use the knowledge of your PhD research directly for your own life, though what I learnt is beyond what is reflected in this book. For the second direction, I had to learn quantitative modelling, survey design, data collection etc., which enable me to understand the foundation of research in many different fields. Now, I am happy to spend these years extending and developing my experience in this field, a field with a bright future and so many opportunities to grow. Although doing a PhD research is an individual activity, the inspiration, motivation and help of others are key success factors. Hereby, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to people who have supported me directly and indirectly during this critical period. Firstly, my greatest thank goes to Prof. Harry Timmermans for his inspirational guidance and patience. His optimism and cooperative attitude have attracted many students from different corners of world and made a very international department. Thank you Harry for all these years, I learnt a lot from you, the way you commit to your work, always having a plan for the future, and your leadership, all were incredibly instructive for me. I would also like to thank Prof. Soora Rasouli who joined the project in the last stage, but her insightful comments on my thesis enriched my experience and promoted the quality of my dissertation from different angles. My appreciation also goes to the members of my dissertation committee, prof. de Vries, Dr. Kemperman and prof. Ettema for their valuable time in reviewing the manuscript. Thank you all for your motivational comments. I really enjoyed reading how you described my project. I also like to thank other members of our department: Aloys, Peter, Mandy, Marielle and Joran for their valuable support during this period. One of the challenging phases of my PhD was data collection, and without help from others it was almost impossible to collect data in the Netherlands. I am viii appreciative to Astrid Kemperman, Margot Jaspars, Dujuan Yang and Mark van Glabbeek. I also like to thank the respondents of my survey whose patience and effort in completing such a long survey provided me a very high quality data set, and I hope they may profit from my findings. Knowing that social aspects of life play a critical role in well-being, I am grateful to all those who made this experience less isolated and more joyful, my friends inside and outside the university for all the gatherings, coffee time, sport activities and chats. I would like to thank my vibrant colleagues Bilin, Bobin, Calvin, Dujuan, Elaine, Eleni, Feixiong, Guangde, Iphi, Marianna, Marielle, Pauline, Rainbow, Robert, Seheon, Sunghoon, Valeria, Wen, Widi, Xiaochen, Yanan, and Zahra (Sareh). Special thanks go to Elaine, Wen and Widi for sharing their critical live moments and experiences with me during this journey.