International Journal of

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Neighborhoods within the hierarchy of urban structure are one of the smallest socio-physical building blocks of cities. Traditional neighborhoods of Iranian historic cities benefited from strong social relations which were flourished over the years and were manifested in the neighborhoods centers. In the modern era, the new master plans and the complementary local plans have disintegrated these neighborhoods both physically and socially. While old traditional neighborhoods were destroyed and new car oriented streets and highways have disrupted the traditional neighborhood life, the introduction of metro stations have provided a nucleus for neighborhoods around which urban space and social activity could emerge once more. In this respect, the attitudes of residents towards metro stations are very important. This study focuses on the social attitudes and the evaluation of traffic impacts of metro stations on adjacent neighborhoods. Therefore, the changes in traffic patterns as well as social characteristics and residential satisfaction levels in two neighborhoods adjacent to metro stations are studied through a questionnaire survey. The results show that despite the potentials provided, metro stations had adverse affects on both social integration and residential satisfaction levels. They also adversely affected neighborhoods in terms of traffic flow through increase in local traffic, demand for parking, and increase in noise pollution. Lack of attention to the new potentials turned them into threats and weakened the already damaged neighborhood structures.

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Living in satisfying urban environments is important for an individual’s well-being. In order to create such environments, planners, designers, and policy makers need to understand the structures that cause residents to feel satisfied with their environments. This paper focuses on the perceived quality of urban residential environments: dwellings and neighborhoods. First, literature review was conducted to extract a list of relevant attributes of environmental quality (EQ), which in turn became the theoretical basis for the rest of this work. Next, the general research methodology, the multi-attribute evaluation of perceived quality of urban residential environments, was presented. Hierarchical multiple regression was used for data analysis. Using written questionnaire, residents in two neighborhoods of Tehran, Zafaranieh and Khaniabad were asked to evaluate their present residential situation on the various residential attributes. Due to the presence of north-south dichotomy in Tehran, researcher tried to compare perceptions of the residents of these two neighborhoods. Regressing the general satisfaction evaluations on the specific evaluations revealed a model fit which appeared to be relatively high (49%). It was concluded that next to physical attributes, psycho-social attributes and attributes of built environments are relevant attributes, and EQ may best be seen as a hierarchical multi-attribute concept. Subjective evaluations varied across two neighborhoods and results showed that older people were somewhat more satisfied with their residential environments than younger people.

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Considering the acceptance of culture as the principle predictorof understanding housing elements, including religious and behavioral patterns, is becoming increasingly important. This understanding can be clearly visualized in a city such as Kerman. Kerman is located in South-East of Iran andhas a diverse culture witha residential district in which Muslims, Zoroastrians, and Jews liveside by side in harmony. In this paper, the impact of religious and behavioral patterns on the interactive structure of houses, which belong to the followers of the above mentioned religions, will be explained.The results of this study could be used as a practical guideline and framework by the planners who are organizing approachesfor designing and renovating buildings in these districts. The paper implements a combinationalresearch method using documentation, field study, interviews, observation and logical reasoning in order to discuss the matter of privacy and hospitality and its impacts on formation of the houses. Furthermore, apart from the study of ethnography, the paper demonstratesthe fact that there are at least two impressive layers affecting the traditional architectural housing in Kerman. The first layer is derived from the dominant cultural patterns of privacy respecting the rights of neighbors and hospitality that are acceptable by all religions.Adhering to these two principles is practical even today. Moreover, the second layer affecting the architectural housing of the Jews and Zoroastrians is derived from their traditions and religious beliefs.

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Based on a gender equity perspective and within a pluralistic civil society, women should have equal rights for presence in and use of urban open spaces. Despite this, various factors decrease their presence including inappropriate design of space, as well as socio-cultural obstacles. Since women’s major place of presence and activity has traditionally been in or near home, neighborhood open space is chosen as a relevant case study. Through a questionnaire survey of 180 subjects, 90 male and 90 female, of both marital status the criteria affecting their presence are investigated. Results show that environmental quality factors are more effective than socio-cultural factors on presence of women in urban open spaces.

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Due to audiences’ diversity, local cultural spaces have the highest share in residents’ mass life. Therefore, these spaces are the necessary environment for social relations and face-to-face communication of residents of urban area. If these are well qualified, welfare would be promoted. This study aims at identifying and evaluating factor influencing quality of local cultural spaces and aims to recognize and prioritize the factor using AHP analytical hierarchical process so as to promote them. This applied study has a descriptive-analytical basis with a population of 75 experts in urban planning and cultural matters and academic staff used as participants. First, the quality criteria of cultural space was determined based on the 4 main criteria and 26 sub-criteria in a hierarchical tree. Then experts were asked to score the major and minor criteria and specify their priorities based on paired comparisons. Applying the Expert Choice which implements the AHP, the weights of each criterion and sub-criterion were estimated respectively. Finally, according to the study’s aim, priorities were determined. The results obtained showed that the physical criteria, weighting 0.557, got the first priority and it was followed by social (0.162), economic (0.148) and environmental (0.133) criteria which got the second to the fourth rank. The sub-criteria affecting the "quality of cultural spaces" of the physical structure included safety, human scale and availability.

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The purposeofthispaper is to examinethe impacts ofphysical contextson theefficacy oflocalmosques. The main question of thisresearchis: “What istherelationship betweenphysical context (including:number and space share per head of mosque in neighborhood, functional radius of mosque, the location of local mosque, local adjacent land uses and finally legibility and identity of local mosque in neighborhoods) and efficacy of local mosques? The research hypothesisis based on the assumption that there is a meaningful relation between physical context of mosques and their expected socio- cultural efficacyinurban neighborhoods. The method of the research has been analytical descriptive.In order to examine the hypothesis, variables “physical components of the mosquesandtheirefficacy" have been assigned. Applying“the Theory of Environmental Quality”, theindexes of each variable have been determined and applied in questionnaire to be evaluated in case studies. The data of the study wereanalyzed through SPSS software and the hypothesis was confirmed with 95% confidence level. Theresearch resultsrevealedthatphysicalcontext ofmosques can have a positive influence on their function of efficacy which consists of socialsolidarity, sense of belongingand sense of religiousaffiliationsofpeople through the five above mentioned factors.

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The key issue in the design of today’s living spaces is the cognitive and socio psychological gap towards individual and social needs of today's human. Place attachment as a quality of urban space has a kind of product-oriented output and requires careful attention to the stages and process of attachment. In the analysis of this process, familiarity with cognitive structures and novel research methods in the field of cognitive psychology, provide designers with valuable information. The main aim of this study is to investigate the role of cognitive psychology approach in the process-oriented study of place attachment. The research tries to address the issue that "how does the process-oriented model is realized in place attachment with an approach of cognitive psychology?". Research is a combination of qualitative (interview) and quantitative (questionnaire) methods. In order to determine the appropriate number of participants, first a pretest was performed as a pilot study on 40 residents of the neighborhood and after the estimation of variance for the initial sample (S2 ) at the confidence level of 95%, the number of the sample was increased to 297. The findings of this study suggest that the most influential criterion on the attachment of residents, is the affect (0.97) dimension; Behavior (0.86) is the second and cognition (0.74) is the third one identified in terms of process dimensions. This research introduces influential criteria in the promotion of affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions of the place attachment process and also investigates the effectiveness degree of each dimension. 

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A safe neighborhood encourages the residents to lead a more physically active lifestyle. A lack of physical activities elevates the risks of various health condition, most profoundly obesity and cardiovascular diseases. This paper presents the development of a questionnaire aimed at measuring the safety factors associated with physical activeness of the residents in urban Tehran neighborhoods that has been tested and validated through pilot study, industry recognized validity tests, and expert review. The questionnaire has six research constructs linked to five specified research indicators. It is available in both Farsi and English, and back translation has been done by field experts to ensure its accuracy in representing the intended measurement. This questionnaire is expected to assist urban developers and managers in improving the safety condition in urban neighborhoods of Iran to promote physical activeness.

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Leisure walking is known as one of the most common type of physical activity that perform in purpose of recreation or health, which in turn may affect resident’s health. Built environment, social and individual factors are known as the main factors that affect decision to walk, in this regards, the study aimed to investigate the influence of personal and social factors that prevent residents to walk for recreation or exercise in their neighborhoods. Hence the fear of crime and personal barriers were examined in the current research as social and personal factors respectively.

To collect the required data, 500 questionnaires by using systematic sampling were distributed from March to May 2016 in four residential neighborhoods of Bandar Abbas in Iran out which 411 questionnaire turned out to be qualified to be used in the study. The Smart-PLS was used to analyze the data. The findings of the study revealed that personal and fear of crime both have significant influence on the level of recreation and exercise walking in the neighborhood areas. The finding of this study can help urban and health researcher to know the significant influence of fear of crime and individual attitudes on the level of leisure walking activity, in addition, the findings of the study suggest that urban planners and designers as well as public health promoters need to highly consider the contribution of neighborhoods' social environment variables as well as individual variables to promote walking behavior changes among adult population.

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Today’s housing, as a private realm of human life, has changed in comparison with the past which was made regardless of quality, desirability, and lack of paying attention to the human needs and its psychological consequences; That is to say, residential units have turned into a set of closed spaces and their open and semi-open spaces have been merged into the urban spaces which disrupted their fundamental functions. In such a situation, reviewing and paying special attention to these spaces together with closed spaces in Tehran is really necessary. But this question is proposed that what are the indicators affecting the quality of open and semi-open spaces in contemporary housing? And how much do they affect the quality of these spaces? This research has a mixed (quantitative-qualitative) method which is applied in terms of purpose, and in terms of data collection method it is of descriptive-analytical and survey type. The statistical population includes 380 inhabitants in residential apartments in the Zafaranieh neighborhood of Tehran. After collecting field information through the questionnaire, the indicators affecting open and semi-open spaces, including: functional, behavioral, physical, environmental, social and perceptual-semantic by using statistical analysis software were analyzed. To investigate the significance of relationship between the mean difference of the scores of the effective indicators, the one sample T-test method and intragroup one-way analysis of variance have been used; the results obtained from the research showed that in the open and semi-open spaces of residential apartments in the Zafaranieh neighborhood, the physical, environmental and behavioral indicators with the mean score of 4.17, 3.52 and 3.22, respectively, have somewhat more favorable and more appropriate situation than other indicators, and currently their efficiency ratio is at moderate limit. However, the functional, social and perceptual-semantic indicators with the mean score of 2.68, 2.57 and 2.21, respectively, are in an unfavorable and inappropriate situation, and their efficiency ratio is at weak limit.

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The main aim of the current paper is to shed light on space syntax theory and criticize its origins and fundamental thoughts.
In order to criticize the space syntax theory, this paper provides computational models of three residential layouts in the city of Tehran, Iran. The main question is how far space syntax theory is able to predict the movement and behavioral patterns of residents in a residential layout in Tehran. In other words, this research explores whether space syntax computational models can cover the behavioral patterns or there are gaps. The hypothesis is that although the configuration of settlements is the primary foundation to natural movements, it demands behavioral settings theory to interpret the behavioral-movement patterns. Comparing the Depth Map models with observations reveals that the configuration of residential layouts has a causal relation with the formation of spatial-physical structure. The integration analysis, based on the space syntax methodological–conceptual framework, is able to predict the general movement patterns of the residents. But when it comes to the behavioral patterns, the synomorphy between physics and behavior can perform a more accurate prediction. The behavioral settings theory by Roger Barker has developed the synomorphy in order to find the adaptations between physical environments and behaviors. The research findings nonetheless support the theoretical understanding that the urban environment’s spatial configuration provides a fundamental condition for the movement patterns but barely can offer a good interpretation for the micro-level behaviors by the residents.

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Livability plays a vital role in the growth and development of cities and citizens' quality of life. Identifying and understanding the needs of citizens and making these settlements viable improves the quality of life in urban areas. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate residents' satisfaction with urban regeneration projects and its relationship with making these neighbourhoods viable. The goals formulated in the regeneration plan of the Kolapa neighbourhood of Hamadan have been extracted and used as criteria for evaluating the satisfaction of the project implementation. Livability criteria have also been divided according to the study of research background into four main classes: physical, environmental, socio-cultural, economic, and health criteria. This study has used descriptive-analytical methods and conducted a field survey through a questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha, with a coefficient of 0.863, confirmed the reliability of the questions. The statistical population is the whole population of the Kolapa neighbourhood, and the statistical sample size is 352, which is calculated by the Cochran formula, with a 5% error and 95% confidence level. We used stochastic sampling in this research. The compiled data were analyzed statistically using Correlation, Path analysis and Regression analysis in Spss and Amos24 environment. To what extent has the regeneration project brought the Kalpa neighborhood of Hamadan closer to the indicators of a livable city? According to the findings, among the satisfaction criteria for the project, sense of place, safety and security, participation and access to facilities and services have the highest level, respectively. According to the research findings, it is possible to benefit from people's participation in various stages of the implementation of the regeneration plan and turn neighborhoods into livable neighborhoods with better quality of life. The residents of the neighborhoods have gained a full understanding (such as strengths and weaknesses) of these types of places because they have lived in them for a long time. Therefore, the neighborhood can be regenerated based on the resident's knowledge and participation. Based on the results of path analysis it was found that regeneration projects mainly consider the physical dimension, and therefore other criteria (especially economic, health and socio-cultural criteria) are less considered.

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Neighborhood parks are important as spaces of residential neighborhoods where part of the daily interactions of residents take place. Hence, the study of environmental quality of the behavioral settings in which they are formed can be considered a suitable indicator to measure environmental quality with behavioral patterns. In order to intervene or adopt strategies in the design and planning of neighborhood parks, behavioral settings offer appropriate indicators. The present study has a combined strategy (qualitative and case study) with an analytical-descriptive approach. The paper evaluates the quality of behavioral settings in a selected neighborhood park (SEKONJ of Shiraz) in three steps. In the first step, the basics and conceptual framework are discussed and in the next step, two components, namely physical (welfare, recreational facilities, and site features) and social (social interactions) are introduced to measure the quality of the setting in neighborhood parks. In the third step of the research, two tactics of semi-structured interview (40 participants) and behavioral mapping (using filming and observation techniques) are used together to collect data. In addition, in this stage using the components expressed in the second step, the quality of behavioral settings in the selected neighborhood park is analyzed. The results of the findings indicate that there is some synomorphy between the behavioral pattern of “recreation” and the physical environment, but the behavioral pattern of “children's play” is not consistent with the physical milieu. Finally, planning and design guidelines and strategies to improve the environmental quality of neighborhood parks are proposed.

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Statement of problem: due to the weakened social life and residence function in historical fabrics, they have absorbed attention as the social and identity heart of the city. A part of each city's identity is composed of narratives concerning the roots, influential figures, as well as prominent processes and activities, most of which have occurred in historical centers. Preserving and reinforcing the historical fabric of Yazd requires a comprehensive multidimensional approach, requiring the recognition of the previous socio-economic structures of the fabric, and valuing it once more as a part of the solution. Therefore, the present study aimed to find an answer to the question of what lessons can be gained from the social relation narratives of economic activities and professions in historical fabrics of Yazd and how they can be used in the regeneration of the neighborhoods. The purpose of the study was to find lessons from the social relation narratives and economic activities and professions of the fabric and to show how these narratives can be used in the planning of different regeneration approaches of historical fabrics. The research was conducted using an interpretive paradigm with a qualitative approach, historical methodology, and narrative. According to the results, a feature that has distinguished Yazd city from other cities in Iran is that the people from different religions have peacefully lived together; followers of all religions have contributed to making valuable physical elements. Moreover, women from different religions have been involved in architectural activities. The neighborhoods were socially connected. The elders were the leading social figures in each neighborhood, who were volunteers in public affairs, including the creation of neighborhood facilities and services, as well as helping the poor and people in need, and played a prominent role in the economic, social, and management activities of the neighborhood. Today, any act to reconstruct the historical neighborhoods needs to be based on “reinforcing social life and the resident’s behavioral systems” and “the use of popular management, revival and improvement of the elders in the neighborhoods, and reviving the old professions to their modern versions and according to the needs of the time as a manifestation of economic and social empowerment of the historical fabrics”. At the end, the study presented how “narratives” can be used for “planning” in different approaches of regenerating the historical fabrics.