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Evaluation of studies in the field of social sustainability in housing: a systematic review

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Abstract

Social sustainability reflects the relationship between individuals and community. Also, it relates to the surrounding and built environment, such as architectural issues of context that affect people’s lives. The purpose of the current research is to systematically review studies on social sustainability in housing, in order to find the indicators that affect them. Eventually, the intent is to design a theoretical framework in this regard based on the literature. The data are extracted from 28 studies that met the inclusion criteria by searching through six databases (6016 records) with looking more closely at keywords related to housing, eliminating additional and duplicated sources plus reading abstracts in several stages. At this point, evaluators’ agreement on the studies is 85.71% based on the CASP checklist, and the kappa coefficient is 0.708. After the checklist stage, 17 studies are identified, coded for concepts, and categorized. The results show that social sustainability in housing can be presented in five general dimensions and ten factors with more detailed indicators. The dimensions that emerged with the indicators are as follows: (a) Functional dimension in two factors of services and facilities—social interaction, (b) Semantic-Perceptual dimension in two factors of imagination and meaning—social capital, (c) Physical dimension in two factors of residential unit scale—neighborhood unit scale, (d) Environmental dimension in two factors of urban health—natural surveillance, and lastly (e) Economic dimension in two factors of socioeconomic equality—affordability.

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Correspondence to Seyed-Abbas Yazdanfar.

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Alaie, A., Yazdanfar, SA., Norouzian-Maleki, S. et al. Evaluation of studies in the field of social sustainability in housing: a systematic review. J Hous and the Built Environ 37, 2179–2214 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-022-09946-0

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