Sociability scenarios of urban public spaces (case study: Urmia city)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Ali Akbar Taghilou ¹
• Hamid reza Nouri ²
• Ali Reza Ahmadi ³

¹ Faculty Member of Urmia University Faculty of Literature

² Member of the educational department of Farhangian University

³ Master's student in urban planning of Zanjan University

10.30495/jupm.2024.31901.4351

Abstract

With the emergence of the thought of modernity and its consequences, we are witnessing thoughts that announce the degradation of the quality of the arena and the public space of the city. Arendt and Habermas both praise the quality of public supply in the city-states of ancient Greece and the intellectual era of eighteenth-century Western Europe and their importance to democratic governments. Sociability is considered as the basic function of urban public spaces, the realization of which will lead to the socio-economic prosperity of the city, and its failure is considered one of the most fundamental urban problems. In this regard, trying to explain the future state of public spaces for sociability is considered a suitable solution for urban planning and management. This research, using a future-research perspective and a descriptive-surveillance method, aims to explain the sociability scenarios of the public spaces of Urmia city, emphasizing the research documents and the opinions of experts in this subject area. With this goal in mind, first the key drivers affecting the sociability of public spaces were extracted from library documents, and after identifying the key drivers of the system, which were five drivers in total, three possible conditions of optimal, static and critical conditions were determined for each of the drivers. After experts' evaluation and data entry into scenario wizard software, a total of 1 strong scenario, 15 believable scenarios and 206 weak scenarios were identified and discussed in the sociability of public spaces in Urmia city. The results of the research indicate that the application of a future-oriented and scenario-oriented view facilitates the possibility of logically and planned achieving the desired state of sociability of spaces and reveals the possible risks of facing critical situations.

Keywords

• Sociability
• Space
• Public Spaces
• Scenario
• Urmia city

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