Satisfaction in Our City

I'll take a few samples fromthe result of my questionnaire about people and their satisfaction with their city, Yogyakarta.. All the people here are unmarried, aged 22-25 years old, so its from the younger part of the society, which is a dominant chunk of the population because the city is known for its many universities, known as the education city.

When asked about their satisfaction on where they live, people who was actually born in Yogya tend to have learned to love their home environment giving reasons like strategic location, cool clean place, good social interaction. While students who stays in dormitories or rent houses can give a more objective and wide opinion. Some say they like their environment because they enjoy the social atmosphere around their dorms, but usually lack the spacial quality. From these few samples, I havent found any really negative answers on the place people live in.

Almost unaimous answers came when asked about nice place to hang out, its open and public spaces such as parks, beach, café’s, restaurants, small food vendors,etc. But none chose Mall or shopping place. Maybe coz these youngsters don’t have much money huh? :p or maybe its just not a cool place to hangout and socialize. But when they recommend destinations to friends n family that come to Yogya, they would rather recommend more unique places like beaches, art galleries, nice museums, cullinary tourism.

About transportation and streets..

Most referred Kotabaru and Gayam as a good street and area, its green lots of trees, wide pedestrian pavements. Some liked Jl.Solo, a shopping street with a one way wide asphalt street, with many malls on the side. Most of them like the fact that public tranpostation is getting better, but still hasn’t got to ideal yet. Needs more routes, old buses are very polutant and uncomfortable. Some say its still better then most city’s. They say that the increase of private vehichles and traffic jam is due to lack of public transport quality and quanity, and need of restriction and control for privat vehichles.its getting more and more crowded.

About the development of the city, people are open to this, but many are unhappy with the increase and uncontrolled private vehichles, and the emerging well-known food chain, malls are becoming more dominant than the basic culture,education soul of the city. If they had one thing they could change, many wanted it to be overall city planning and public transportation. While if they could maintain and stop one thing from changing it would be the soul and cultural aspect of the city, herritage tangible and intangible, the collective memmory of the city and its humbleness is a very strong thing that needs to be conserved.

Overall,in this case of Yogyakarta, people seem to notice the development of the city and are very concerned about it. They know what they like, what they don’t like, they know the character and spirit of the city. So when people know what they want, it shoould be easier to get it. We need a forum that discusses about the city and its development, its opportunities and problems. And that’s what My friends and I are planning to do real soon.

Next, we’ll be talking bout satisfaction in city from theory and refference