91% of Sofia Citizens Like the Bulgaria's Capital

Society | May 30, 2019, Thursday // 16:14
Bulgaria: 91% of Sofia Citizens Like the Bulgaria's Capital

91% of Sofia citizens like their city, while 57% believe that the capital is becoming a better place to live. This shows a representative poll of more than 2,500 people conducted by Alfa Research. It is part of the large-scale municipal initiative "Vision for Sofia", which should outline how the city will develop until 2050, the newspaper "24 hours" writes.

Overall, according to the survey, Sofia’s residents are satisfied with the commercial network, culture and education opportunities and public transport in the city. The most critical are air quality and noise level, cleanliness, street and building condition, life and security costs.

It turns out that two thirds of the residents living in the city centre are university graduates, and more than 50% - with income over 1000 BGN per household member. In the neighborhoods Lozenets, Dianabad, Gotse Delchev, Geo Milev, Yavorov and Hristo Smirnenski live mainly highly educated people, who’s work doesn’t include manual labor but with income around the average for Sofia. The most dissatisfied with their incomes are those living in Druzhba, Lyulin and Obelya.

In the centre the fully satisfied with their lives people are twice as much than the partially satisfied ones. This is also the case in the eastern and southern regions and the northern suburban area. In Krasna Polyana, West Park, Fondovi Housing, Razsadnika, however, the satisfied citizens of Sofia are only 14%, while in Ovcha Kupel, Slavia and Fakulteta - 20%

Most satisfied with the public transport are the residents of the old southern neighborhoods, the centre and the suburban areas. For most respondents, urban transport ranks first among the spontaneously listed advantages of their neighborhoods. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of them travel mostly with it every day.  27% of the people use their cars on daily basis and 8% walk on foot. 68% think that bike lanes aren’t enough, and two out of three people want them to be build on another model.

Secondly, citizens of Sofia are declaring that they are most satisfied from the cultural life - 91%. At the same time, however, they are not mass consumers of culture - most often they leave their neighborhood for shopping and dining, and the most common cultural practice is visiting cinemas, according to data.

The opportunities that Sofia offers for education are also highly appreciated - over 50% of respondents are fully satisfied and total satisfaction reaches 90%. A major advantage of the city is the access to shops and shopping areas.

Between 30% and 49% vary the citizens’ dissatisfaction with the public spaces and green areas, the nature and quality of drinking water, labor and business opportunities, income levels, accessibility of housing and social services. The most dissatisfied with markets, squares and pedestrian zones are Lyulin, Obelya, Druzhba and the new southern districts.

Affordable job ranks third among the spontaneous answers to what are the most attractive features of Sofia, but according to people, most job opportunities do not lead to a drastically higher standard of living. The greatest concentration of dissatisfied with their income is in Levski, Hadji Dimitar, Suhata Reka and Hristo Botev.

As the biggest irritant in their city life, Sofia residents report traffic - 46%, and dirty air - 36%. 16% indicate cleanliness as one of the main problems. 59% are not satisfied with the high noise level. The state of the streets and buildings is unsatisfactory for 56%. Holes in the streets hold the first place in the spontaneously stated problems of the neighborhoods.

The majority of households have a home with 2-3 rooms. 63% live in their own property, 9% pay rent. Tenants of municipal housing are negligible. Over 70% live in buildings built before 1989. Most of the surveyed neighborhoods have changed for better in recent years. The most pleased are people living in Krasno Selo, Lozenets, Gotse Delchev, Dianabad, Yavorov and others.

48% of the Sofia citizens say their income is for all the necessary things, 34% have good incomes and 3% - high. Difficulties are experiencing 16% and 7% say they have low incomes. 45% of the unemployed and 41% of the pensioners are forced to experience deprivation. 25% of families have 2 cars, only 16% throw away garbage separately. 71% of households in Sofia have a car and at least one bicycle in every third household.

96% of the citizens are health insured. However, the majority do not exercise actively. 71% admit that they did not spend time for sport activities during the week.

In response to a closed question, "What a city is Sofia for you?" The inhabitants identify it as a city with educational opportunities - 52%, with an ancient history - 50%, fast growing - 44%, etc. At the bottom of the answers are a "city with lots of greenery" - 11%, with a strong economy - 10%, with good governance - 10%.

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Tags: sofia, Bulgaria, citizens, neighborhoods, survey

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