Sociological Foundations for the Reflexy on Favorable Urban Environment in Youth Public Opinion

The article deals with modern urbanization process leading to the transformation not only of the socio-economic characteristics of the territorial community, but also changing the population’s perception of life quality in urban environment. A public opinion poll conducted among the youth of the city of Saratov revealed the main tendencies in urban policy, namely: the city should provide such an environment in which people will want to live. The paper identifies the main factors that, in the opinion of the respondents, make the urban environment favorable. The youth considered to be comfortable for life the ecologically area, located close to the city center with high concentration of various places of entertainment, the availability of theaters, museums, as well as with abundance of green spaces, the proximity of parks, plantations and the river. In addition, this area should have inherent qualities such as remoteness from industrial facilities, the predominance of new multi-storey buildings in the building, a developed system of public transport. The article emphasizes that the main component of the reflection of young people is the love to their native city or its separate places. 81% of the young people in the survey have got favorable places in Saratov, but 19% of them have not. The respondents chose as their favorite places the Embankment of Cosmonauts, Gorky Park, Victory Park, Lipky City Garden, the pedestrian zones in Volzhskaya Street and in Kirov Avenue, etc. In conclusion the need of expanding activities to improve the city zone quality is proposed and the project of improvement Saratov environment “Strelka” is considered as an example.