Measuring satisfaction with the quality of urban spaces and providing strategies to improve it: Case of Erfan Tourist Region in Shiraz

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• ehsan heidarzadeh ¹
• sayyed mohammad sadegh pouryazdanparast ²

¹ Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Art and Architecture Faculty, Persian Gulf University, Bushehr, Iran

² PhD Candidate in Urban planning, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Since the early 1960s, many practitioners have pointed to the death of collective spaces due to a permanent drop in quality in urban spaces. Recently, the quality of public spaces has increasingly become an important research topic in various fields related to urban development. There are a number of problems in Erfan Tourist Region in Shiraz such as the lack of facilities required for urban spaces, traffic problems, and traffic jams, the lack of the capacities required for crowded periods as problems typical of urban spaces. Through the review of valid literature in the field, 23 indicators were selected in this paper to measure the quality of urban spaces. Subsequently, these indicators were tested through a questionnaire in four areas under analysis. Using the factor analysis, the factors determining the quality of urban spaces were determined. In the next stage, the four urban spaces were ranked based on six factors related to the quality of urban spaces. According to the results, Quran Gate was ranked first in terms of urban space quality factors. Besides, the priority of intervention in urban space quality indicators was determined based on the relative importance of these indicators using regression analysis The intervention priorities for the areas under study including Qaem Square, Abu al-Klam Square, Quran Gate, and Hafezieh Footpath were satisfaction with the attractiveness, the economic efficiency of the place, and improvement of accessibility and permeability to the place, respectively. Finally, a number of strategies were suggested based on the insights from the study.
Since 1960, many experts such as J.Jacobs, F.Tibbalds, T.Banergee and etc have mentioned the death of public spaces and have considered the perpetual decline of the quality in urban spaces as the result of it. In modern cities, disappearance of public urban areas resulted in the reluctance to the social interaction, reduction of the social chat, behavioral anomalies, indifference to the public areas, environmental pollution, decline of the mental-physical health and placelessness .Before modernism, public spaces where a place for social communications .Furthermore, open spaces helped people to promote their sense of unity and belonging. Recently, the concept of quality have been increasingly propounded as an important research subject in majors related to the  urban development.
Erfan touristic area which is located in shiraz, Iran has been selected as the cultural and touristic center of Shiraz because of having historic works, university centers and several urban spaces. Based on a survey completed by the authorities of Shiraz ,lack of entertainment facilities in urban spaces ,lack of attention to proper spacing, lack of attraction in these spaces, lack of the urban services, lack of attention to the urban spaces on the part of authorities, traffic problems ,lack of capacity of these spaces in holidays and etc were the major problems of urban spaces in this touristic area.
The main aim of this study was reaching to an explicit response for rational treatment of the quality of public spaces in terms of the pathology and organizing .To do so, several questions were posed for this study which were  as follows:1.What factors are important in the assessment of the quality of the public spaces in Shiraz? and 2.what strategies are appropriate for the improvement of the public spaces of Shiraz city? Hypothesis of this study was that apparently in urban spaces of Erfan Touristic area three components such as form, performance and meaning had different priorities for pathology and organizing of the quality of spaces.
Methodology of Research
This study was an applied research and in terms of the analysis of the data it was a descriptive and analytical research .First indexes of the assessment of the quality of the urban spaces were selected by consulting to different reliable foreign and domestic texts and then the reliability and validity of the indexes were determined by three methods. Based on the cronbach's alpha test, reliability of the relevant indexes were appropriate ( 0.901).Then this indexes were assessed in the form of a questionnaire in four urban spaces of the Erfan touristic area. Population of the study were inhabitants of the Erfan touristic area which numbered to 36356.Based on the Cochran formula and given the safety factor of  the 90 percent and the error of 0.01 and p=q=0.5 ,sample of the study were considered 96 persons and finally 100 questionnaires were distributed. To assess the quality of these four spaces ,factor analysis technique was used. Following the formation of factors, by considering the scores of the factors of the each of these four spaces a compound index would be resulted that determined the possibility of the assessment of the quality of urban spaces and the resulted four numbers provided the possibility of making a comparison between these four spaces. It should be noted that the possibility of making a comparison  of the status of these fours spaces was provided in each of the factors. Finally, to grade the effective factors in the quality of the urban spaces and to provide strategies for improving the quality of the relevant urban spaces, multivariable regression analysis was used.
 
Results
Through factor analysis method, 6 factors explaining the quality of the urban spaces were determined. The first factor with an explanation of  17.4%  of the whole variance had the most role in explaining the quality of the urban space of the relevant touristic area. Given the rotated factor matrix and the load factor of indexes related to this factor ,it can be seen that this factor had the most relationship with the variables such as the degree of the satisfaction of the identity and location differentiation of the place , the degree of the satisfaction of the climatic comfort of the place, the degree of the satisfaction of the safety of the environment for different activities, the degree of the satisfaction of the sanity of the place, the degree of the satisfaction of the belonging to the place, the degree of the satisfaction of the sensual richness of the place and the degree of the security of the place for different activities.
This factor can be interpreted and named as the "perceptual quality and comfort in place." The second factor with an explanation of 10.84% of the whole variance had the most relationship with the variables such as the degree of the satisfaction of the variety and mixture of usage in place, the degree of the satisfaction of the meaning transfer through the place and the degree of the satisfaction of the manageability, control and supervision. This factor can be interpreted and named as "the variation quality of the place." The third factor with an explanation of the 10.526% of the whole variance had the most relationship with the degree of the satisfaction of the accessibility to the place ,the degree  of the familiarity with the place and the degree of the satisfaction of the flexibility of the place. This factor can be interpreted and named as the "accountability quality of the place." The fourth factor with an explanation of the 8.99% of the whole variance had the most relationship with the degree of the satisfaction of the environmental sustainability, the degree of the satisfaction of the vitality of the place, the degree of the satisfaction of the lighting and night life of the place. This factor can be interpreted and named as the "sustainability and vitality quality of the place." The fifth factor with an explanation of  7.82% of the whole variance had a significant relationship with variables such as the degree of the satisfaction of the attractiveness of the place and the degree of the satisfaction of the socializability of the place. Therefore, this factor can be named as "social quality of the place." The six factor with an explanation of the 6.20% of the whole variance had significant relationship with the degree of the satisfaction of the economical effectiveness of the place. This factor can be named as "economical quality of the place." It should be noted that 4 indexes of the 23 indexes were not placed in the subset of the factors.
 
In the next phase of the study the score of the four urban spaces in terms of the six factors and the whole quality of the space was determined that based on the results Qur'an Gate with a final score of 129 ,in terms of the urban quality of the space, had a better status. Through regression analysis and grading constructive factors in space quality based on their importance, the factor of the social quality of the place with a beta coefficient of 0.342 had the most effect on explaining the dependant variable. Therefore, it could be concluded that "social factor of the place" had an important role in causal analysis of the "the degree of the satisfaction of the quality of the studied place." The factor of "the accountability quality of the place" with a beta coefficient of 0.341 had the second place and the factor of "perceptual quality and comfort  of the place'  with a beta coefficient of 0.296 had the third place in affecting the dependant variable.
 
Conclusion
Through multiplying the numbers of "coefficient of the load factor of the variable' , "agent beta' and 'the degree of the dissatisfaction of the variable' , it was deal with the grading of the variables as the priorities of the quality promotion in urbane spaces of the Erfan touristic area. Intervention priorities in Qaem square implied the improvement of the degree of the satisfaction of the attractiveness of the place, in Abul Kamal Square they implied the improvement of the economical effectiveness of the place and in Qu'ran qate and Hafezie pavement they implied the improvement of the accessibility that based on this required strategies are proposed.

Keywords

• Urban space
• Satisfaction
• Factor Analysis
• Regression Analysis
• Erfan Region in Shiraz

20.1001.1.22285229.1399.11.41.5.4

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