The Vertical Shift: A Comparative Socio-Spatial Analysis of Social Well-Being in Al-Zuhur and Bismayah Complexes

The rise of vertical housing complexes as a solution to urban density challenges has generated significant research interest regarding their effects on residents' lives. Studies have identified five key categories of potentially harmful effects from high-rise living: crime and vandalism issues with reduced informal social control, mental health problems that appear more frequently among high-rise residents, social effects including decreased sense of community and lower social support levels, negative impacts on families and children due to inadequate facilities and supervision challenges, and physical health effects ranging from fire risks to sick building syndrome [1].

The physical structure of housing units directly influences inhabitants' mental health and overall well-being, with high-rise buildings often associated with problems such as social isolation, crime, negative public perception, and poor air quality. Research consistently demonstrates that characteristics of high-rise housing, including home type, floor level, and housing quality, can significantly impact residents' mental health, with high-rise apartment living showing negative effects on both social well-being and mental health when compared to other housing types [2].

These findings underscore the importance of comparative studies that can help identify specific factors contributing to quality-of-life differences between different vertical housing developments.

2.1 Social life impacts

The impact of vertical housing complexes on social life varies significantly based on design elements and community features. Research indicates that vertically naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) can actually show better social connectivity compared to scattered neighborhoods, particularly when residents are provided with dedicated community spaces for social programs and interaction [3].

The presence of green spaces and social amenities within residential buildings serves as important "oases" that satisfy social functions by supporting mental health and reducing stress levels among residents [4].

Building arrangement and design play a crucial role in fostering social interactions within vertical complexes. Research demonstrates that the built environment influences social interactions indirectly through convex positive building arrangements that foster territoriality and a sense of belonging, both of which positively affect social interactions. The study found that residents with higher levels of social interaction experienced a greater sense of community belonging, enhanced emotional support, and better overall quality of life [5].

In the Baghdad context specifically, research on vertical residential complexes has identified key social quality indicators including social interaction, social relations, safety and security, social peace, social consensus, opportunities for social meetings, popular participation, and gender participation and empowerment. A study of the Salhia residential complex in Baghdad found that residents showed satisfaction with most social indicators, suggesting that well-planned vertical complexes can effectively support social life when appropriate planning indicators are implemented [6].

2.2 Quality of life impacts

The quality-of-life impacts of vertical housing complexes are multifaceted and often negative, particularly when planning fails to address residents' comprehensive needs. The transformation from traditional housing to apartment buildings frequently results in environmental degradation including overcrowding, air pollution, traffic congestion, and increased sound pollution, which creates scarcity of resources and increased pressure on public spaces, activities, and facilities, These deteriorating living conditions have direct consequences for residents' health, leading to the spread of infectious diseases, chronic diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and mental health issues, with residents reporting respiratory problems, orthopedic issues, asthma, headaches, fatigue, and mental and visual impairments [7].

The physical structure and design of vertical housing units create additional quality of life challenges through inadequate facilities and poor environmental conditions. High-rise buildings are often associated with problems including social isolation, crime, negative public perception, and poor air quality, while many facilities and amenities are insufficient for occupants or located far from dwellings. Research has found that characteristics such as home type, floor level, and housing quality can impact residents' mental health, with high-rise apartment living showing negative effects on both social wellbeing and mental health compared to other housing types [2].

Table 1. Literature review analysis

The open spaces within high-rise housing complexes, including green and gray spaces, play a crucial role in shaping residents' urban experience and overall quality of life. These spaces create a distinct urban landscape that will presumably dominate future urban experiences, with different planning aspects of open spaces affecting everyday use, function, attitudes, and feelings among residents [8] (Table 1).

2.3 Socio-spatial production of vertical housing

This study understands vertical housing complexes as socio-spatial constructions produced through the interaction between built form and everyday practices. Drawing on Lefebvre’s [9] triad of spatial practice, representations of space, and spaces of representation, the analysis distinguishes between planned architectural space and lived social space in Baghdad’s high-rise settlements [9, 10].

De Certeau’s [11] distinction between institutional strategies and residents’ everyday tactics further helps to explain how inhabitants appropriate, reinterpret, and selectively modify shared spaces in order to secure privacy, social support, and a sense of control. Building on Soja [12] and Harvey [13], the notion of socio-spatial justice and the "right to the city" highlights questions of fair access to services, participation in decision-making, and the distribution of opportunities across different residential areas in Baghdad’s rapidly verticalizing urban fabric [12, 14, 15].

2.4 Privacy, territoriality, and socio-cultural norms

In this study, privacy is conceptualized, in line with Altman [16], as an interactive regulation, which is governed by territorial, behavioral, and cultural processes, instead of being a static condition. The differences between the individual, family, neighbor, and community levels of privacy as defined by Westin [17] are applied to understand how residents balance the visual and acoustic exposure in various areas of the complexes.

These ideas are interpreted through the Iraqi Arab-Islamic socio-spatial standards, which pay much attention to regulating access to domestic and semi-private spaces and gendered mobility patterns. The concept of graduated public, semi-public, and private spaces is central to the argument that in the realization that spatial design has either promoted or hampered the capacity of residents to deal with boundaries between accessibility and privacy [11, 13, 14, 18, 19].

2.5 Social capital, public life, and place attachment

The study applies social capital theory — as developed by Putnam [20] — to analyse social life in both complexes of Putnam [20], which focus on the networks of trust, reciprocity, and collective action, and is interpreted in the study. These concepts are associated with the work of Gehl [21, 22] on life between buildings, which emphasizes the significance of designed public and semi-public spaces to facilitate everyday experiences, informal observation, and social cohesion in high-density vertical landscapes [20-23]. In environmental psychology, the place identity and place attachment are applied to describe how residents create emotional and cognitive attachments to the living environment, and how emotional and psychological sense of ownership and sense of belonging to space mediate between spatial design and the perceived quality of social life [16, 17, 24].

Together, these three theoretical strands – socio-spatial production, privacy/territoriality, and social capital/place attachment – are integrated in a three-level socio-spatial model (macro–meso–micro) that guides the empirical analysis of ZHC and BMC.

2.6 Integrated theoretical approach: A multi-level model of socio-spatial interactions

Based on the theories and concepts presented above, this research proposes an integrated, multi-level theoretical model for understanding socio-spatial interactions in vertical residential complexes. This model consists of three overlapping and interrelated levels:

1. Macro level: socio-political production of residential space: This level focuses on the broader social, economic, political, and cultural processes and forces that shape the production and development of vertical housing complexes. This includes analysis of housing policies, real estate market dynamics, shifts in urban development patterns, dominant discourses about urbanization and modernization, and relations between the state, the private sector, and civil society in housing production.

It also includes an analysis of the relationships between vertical housing complexes and the wider urban fabric, and socio-spatial disparities between different residential areas [15, 25].

2. Meso level: design, spatial planning, and social structure: This level focuses on the relationships between the spatial design and layout of vertical residential complexes and the social and cultural structure of the community.

This includes analyzing spatial design and planning characteristics such as population density, distribution of public and private spaces, movement and access networks, shared facilities and services, and the impact of these characteristics on patterns of social interaction, the formation of social capital, a sense of belonging and spatial identity, and the ability to achieve privacy and security [26, 27].

3. Micro level: daily practices and living experiences. This scale is related to the everyday life and experience of residents in vertical residential housing blocks. This involves studying how the inhabitants make use of different spaces, how they appropriate and transform space to suit their needs and aspirations, and how they maneuver in relation and raise feelings of belonging to the place. It focuses, too, on how residents experience and perceive the quality of their residential living conditions and satisfaction with various aspects of the neighborhood environment [11, 28].

The research proposes a multi-level model (macro: politics and context, mezzo: design and social structure, micro: everyday practices) to analyze socio-spatial interactions.

2.7 Key research concepts and procedural definitions

The research defines vertical complexes as multi-story housing units with shared spaces and services and focuses on the quality of social life as a result of physical, social, and psychological factors.

Quality of life is defined procedurally in this research as "an integrated set of objective and subjective factors that affect the level of well-being of individuals and communities and include physical, social, psychological, environmental, cultural, and institutional aspects," and the research adopts a multidimensional concept of quality of life that includes four main dimensions: the social dimension, the environmental and spatial dimension, the institutional dimension and governance, the sustainability dimension, and the urban planning dimension [29].

Social life in an urban context is operationally defined as "the system of relationships, interactions, and daily practices that arise between individuals and groups within built spaces, and that are directly and indirectly influenced by the spatial and design characteristics of these spaces" [30].

Social interaction is operationally defined as "the set of processes and interrelationships between individuals and groups within residential complexes, which include direct and indirect contact, exchange of information and resources, participation in joint activities, mutual support, and participation in collective decision-making" [31].

Spatial affiliation is operationally defined as "the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral bond that develops between individuals and the residential place, which includes a sense of intimacy, connection, belonging, and spatial identity," while social identity is defined as "an individual's sense of belonging to a particular social group, identification with its values, norms, and practices, and the development of a sense of solidarity and commitment towards it [32].

2.8 Proposed analytical model: An integrated framework for assessing the quality of social life in vertical housing complexes

Based on the integrated theoretical framework and research hypotheses, the research proposes a comprehensive analytical model for assessing the quality of social life in vertical residential complexes, consisting of five main dimensions comprising 25 detailed indicators between the ZHC and BMC in Baghdad, with the possibility of adapting and applying it in other similar contexts. The model is characterized by taking into account the cultural and social specificity of the Iraqi context while benefiting from contemporary global theories and concepts in the field of urban and residential studies.

The reformulated theoretical approach is an essential development towards a more detailed and comprehensive explanation of how the spatial design affects the quality of social life in vertical residential complexes in the modern condition of Iraq, with a balance between openness to new theories and concepts from the international space and its local cultural and social specificity.

This balance is necessary to develop authentic and relevant knowledge of local realities, without sacrificing local specificity or disengaging from global scholarly discourse, in the broader context of global scientific knowledge.

Based on these threads of theory, the paper hypothesizes the existence of a mid-range socio-spatial mechanism model whereby (1) meso-level opportunities to experience everyday encounters and informal surveillance are created by spatial gradation between public, semi-public, and private spaces; (2) these opportunities interact with governance processes and resident involvement to reinforce or dilute social capital; and (3) stronger social capital and place attachment, in turn, are fostered. Although the data are cross-sectional and cannot be used to make strong causal statements, this mechanism can testably organize the interpretation of comparative patterns that can be found in ZHC and BMC.

4.1 Socio-demographic characteristics of the sample

The demographic and social data of the sample show a marked variation between the ZHC and BMC in some characteristics and similarities in others, as shown in Table 4, Figure 1, and Figure 2.

In brief, respondents in ZHC tend to be slightly older and more highly educated, with a higher share of longer-term residents, whereas BMC includes more younger households and recent arrivals with shorter length of stay. The majority of respondents in both complexes live in nuclear families, with extended households somewhat more common in ZHC. Employment status was also recorded and shows broadly similar proportions of employed, self‑employed, and non‑employed residents in both cases.

As Table 4 shows, most respondents in both complexes live in nuclear families, with extended households somewhat more common in ZHC, and the average family size is slightly larger in ZHC than in BMC. Information on detailed employment status was not systematically available and is therefore not included beyond the broad employed/non‑employed distinction, which is a minor limitation when interpreting compositional differences.

Figure 1. Pictures in Bismayah New City (BMC)

Figure 2. Pictures in Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC)

Table 4. Socio-demographic characteristics of the study sample in the Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC) and Bismayah New City (BMC)

Table 4 indicates clear socio-demographic contrasts between the two complexes. BMC has a newer settlement (31% of respondents have lived there for less than two years), a higher share of young residents under 30, and a larger proportion of nuclear families. ZHC, on the other hand, has greater residential stability, a marginally higher educational profile, and a marginally higher incidence of extended families.

4.2 Comparison of indicators of social interaction and social relations

Questionnaire data show for ZHC on all indicators of everyday social interaction and the depth of social ties. This quantitative pattern is mirrored in interview accounts that describe more frequent visits, shared activities, and mutual support among neighbours in ZHC than in BMC.

Table 5 compares ZHC and BMC respondents on social interaction and social relations.

Table 5. Comparison between Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC) and Bismayah New City (BMC) in indicators of social interaction and social relations

4.3 Comparison of community safety and security indicators

In Table 6, we compare ZHC and BMC respondents on indicators of community safety and security.

Table 6. Comparison between Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC) and Bismayah New City (BMC) in community safety and security indicators

Interview data help explain this pattern. Residents in BMC frequently highlighted advanced security infrastructure and strict formal procedures at gates and entrances, whereas ZHC residents stressed informal social control based on close acquaintance with neighbours and continuous presence in shared spaces.

4.4 Comparison of community participation and empowerment indicators

Table 7 compares ZHC and BMC respondents on community participation and empowerment indicators.

Table 7. Comparison between Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC) and Bismayah New City (BMC) in the indicators of community participation and empowerment

Based on interviews and focus groups, ZHC  residents regularly engage with active housing committees and active communication channels with the community administration, while BMC residents report that there is a centralized, top-down management style with limited opportunities to participate in decision-making.

4.5 Comparison of spatial affiliation and community identity indicators

Table 8 compares ZHC and BMC respondents on spatial affiliation and community identity indicators.

Table 8. Comparison between Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC) and Bismayah New City (BMC) in the indicators of spatial affiliation and community identity

Qualitative evidence corroborates this pattern. Many ZHC residents described the complex as "our place" and emphasised long‑term ties with neighbours and shared histories, while interviewees from BMC more often reported weak social ties and a limited sense of identification with the wider community.

4.6 Comparison of indicators of the balance between privacy and social

Table 9 compares ZHC and BMC respondents on the balance between privacy and social indicators.

Table 9. Comparison between ZHC and BMC in the indicators of the balance between privacy and social

The disparity in spatial identity between the two complexes suggests that 'institutionalized design' in BMC suppresses individual expression, whereas ZHC’s layout allows for 'socio-spatial appropriation' by the residents.

4.7 Comprehensive comparison of indicators of the quality of social life

To provide a comprehensive picture of the comparison between the two groups, the overall averages of the five dimensions of the quality of social life were calculated, as shown in Table 10 and Figure 3.

Figure 3. Comparison between Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC) and Bismayah New City (BMC) in the five dimensions of social quality of life

Table 10. Comprehensive comparison between Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC) and Bismayah New City (BMC) in the five dimensions of the quality of social life

Table 10 and Figure 3 show significantly higher scores in ZHC than BMC in social interaction, community participation, spatial belonging, and balance between privacy and social, while BMC excelled in community security.

The aggregate results show that ZHC has better scores on social interaction, community participation, spatial belonging, and balance of privacy and social life than BMC, which can be achieved only in particular indicators of security.

4.8 Analysis of the relationship between the characteristics of spatial design and the quality of social life

To understand the relationship between spatial design characteristics and the quality of social life more deeply, multiple regression analysis was performed, and path analysis was used to test the proposed theoretical model, as shown in Table 11 and Figure 4. All regression and path models are based on the factor-validated composite scales described in the Methodology section, with higher scores indicating higher levels of social interaction, participation/empowerment, spatial belonging/identity and perceived community security.

Table 11 shows a statistically significant relationship between spatial design characteristics and social quality of life, as these characteristics together are associated with 58% of the explained variance in the quality of social life (R² = 0.58). Spatial hierarchy between public and private spaces had the strongest association with (β = 0.42), followed by movement and access regulation (β = 0.38), and design of shared spaces (β = 0.36).

Table 11. Results of multiple regression analysis of the relationship between spatial design characteristics and quality of social life

Figure 4 presents a regression-based path diagram that summarises the direct and indirect associations between spatial design and the quality of social life derived from the sequence of OLS models. Besides the direct association between spatial design and the quality of social life on the quality of social life (β = 0.18), there are indirect effects through social interaction and social relationships (β = 0.32), community participation and empowerment (β = 0.28), and spatial belonging and community identity (β = 0.24). The model also shows the role of spatial affiliation and community identity as a major mediating variable in the relationship between social interaction and community participation on the one hand, and the quality of social life on the other.

Figure 4. Path analysis model for the relationship between spatial design characteristics and quality of social life

The results partly validate, yet also invalidate, prevailing global discourses of high-rise living. Similar to much of the literature, the higher the socio-spatial gradation and the better-utilized shared spaces, the greater the degree of social interaction and perceived social quality. But the Baghdad case demonstrates that these effects are closely mediated by culturally specific privacy norms and by the history of conflict and insecurity. Dense everyday interaction and high social capital go hand in hand in ZHC, and there is less perceived community security, but more formal security infrastructure does not necessarily lead to stronger social ties in BMC. This mixed pattern indicates that in conflict-related situations, design and governance need to strike a more delicate balance of openness, surveillance, and the control that residents require than is commonly presumed in the international literature.

In addition, although participation is consistently associated with positive outcomes in the literature in most circumstances, the comparison reveals that formal participation structures in BMC are still weak when they lack any meaningful power of decision-making and trust, and more effective in building solidarity, suggesting that cultural embeddedness may compensate for the absence of formal institutional structures in some contexts.

4.9 Analytical comparison of design and planning characteristics between the two complexes

A comprehensive spatial analysis of the two complexes to understand the structural characteristics of the urban fabric and their impact on patterns of movement and social interaction. Table 12 shows the most important design and planning characteristics of the two complexes.

Figure 5 illustrates how spatial design and planning characteristics are associated with social quality of life through four intermediary mechanisms, within the broader cultural context.

Table 12. Comparison between the design and planning characteristics of the Al-Zuhur Housing Complex (ZHC) and Bismayah New City (BMC)

Figure 5. An integrated model of the factors affecting the quality of social life in vertical housing complexes

The model explains the differences between ZHC and BMC by the following mechanisms:

1. Spatial gradient and social interaction: The ZHC is characterized by a clearer spatial hierarchy between public and private spaces, which provides more opportunities for gradual and transitional social interaction, and contributes to building social capital and enhancing spatial identity.
2. Spatial appropriation and adaptability: The design of common spaces in the ZHC provides greater opportunities for adaptation and modification by residents, which enhances the sense of ownership and belonging, and increases the use of these spaces and the intensity of social interactions in them.
3. Mechanism of participation and governance: The administrative structure of ZHC provides greater opportunities for community participation in decision-making processes, which enhances the sense of empowerment and shared responsibility, and contributes to building a more cohesive and cohesive society.
4. The mechanism of balance between privacy and social: The design of the ZHC succeeds in balancing the competing needs of privacy and social interaction, reducing the tension between them and enhancing the quality of social life.

A key limitation is that, although we collected and reported basic socio‑demographic differences between ZHC and BMC, these variables could not be fully modelled as covariates in the regression/path analysis, so some unobserved compositional effects may still influence the comparison.

1. In designing future vertical housing and upgrading existing vertical housing complexes, planners and designers should adopt distinct socio-spatial gradients that structure public, semi-public, and private spaces according to Iraqi cultural practice of privacy and sociability. This involves conceptualising transitions, halls, and courtyards as intermediary spaces for encounter that do not impinge on domestic privacy.
2. Local and project managers should establish participatory governance structures, such as residents' committees, periodic consultation meetings, and effective complaint and feedback channels, to ensure that residents can self-manage shared spaces and engage in decision-making processes affecting their social quality of life.
3. Baghdad's building design guidelines for vertical housing projects should expand quantitative criteria (density, gross floor area, parking spaces) to explicitly consider social quality-of-life indicators (social interaction, spatial belonging, security) as part of their evaluation in project approval and post-occupancy assessments.
4. In projects like BMC, where security is relatively high but spatial interaction is low, local strategies should prioritise the activation of underused shared spaces with community-based programs, low-cost landscape interventions, and flexible low-cost place attachment upgrades that encourage spatial appropriation and customisation by residents.
5. At the policy level, national and municipal housing policies should consider vertical complexes as socio-spatial, rather than real-estate, products. This means incorporating urban design, social policy, and housing management approaches to enable inclusive, culturally sensitive, and socially sustainable high-rise housing in Baghdad.

6.1 Prospects for future studies

1. Comparative studies can be conducted between vertical residential complexes in Iraq and their counterparts in other Arab and Islamic countries, as well as in diverse cultural contexts, to understand the impact of cultural and social factors on the relationship between spatial design and the quality of social life.
2. Studies of the impact of modern technology (such as the Internet, social media, and smart technologies) on social life in vertical residential complexes, and the possibilities of using this technology to enhance the quality of social life.
3. Studies can be conducted on the impact of major crises and changes (such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and economic crises) on life in vertical residential complexes, and how these complexes adapt to these challenges.
4. Assess the changing perceptions and expectations of residents of vertical housing and how these perceptions affect resident satisfaction, mobility, and retention in vertical residential developments.