Urban Sustainability
hossein daneshmehr; saaied khani; vorya molasalimi
Abstract
Highlights- There is a significant positive relationship between the level of apartment life standards and social capital in residents of Mehr Dwellings.- There is no significant relationship between the type of residence and social capital in residents of Mehr Dwellings.- The variables of neighborhood ...
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Highlights- There is a significant positive relationship between the level of apartment life standards and social capital in residents of Mehr Dwellings.- There is no significant relationship between the type of residence and social capital in residents of Mehr Dwellings.- The variables of neighborhood relations and level of acquaintance have influenced the social capital of residents of Mehr Dwellings. IntroductionToday, social capital is an indicator of growth and development in societies, without which it is highly challenging to achieve development at different levels. This capital increases investment in the fields of physical capital and human capital and establishes the structures created by public and private sector agents. Housing is one of the most important human needs leading to social conflicts or peace in different ages. The occurrence of each of these conditions is directly related to the amount of social capital among the residents, from the point of view that the social norths and souths in cities have turned into a concept for class distinction. Projects like Mehr Dwellings may have been capable of meeting the housing market needs in terms of quantity and shelter to a large extent, but what is stated in the theoretical literature on social housing at the global level, i.e. the level of satisfaction of residents of social housing projects, concerns the conditions therein in social, cultural, and other terms. It seems that the Mehr Dwellings project was carried out in a hasty manner regardless of basic criteria such as social capital. Therefore, the current research seeks to investigate the social capital conditions among the residents of Mehr Dwellings in the city of Sanandaj, Iran and the effective sociological factors. The questions raised on that basis concern the level of social capital among the residents of Mehr Dwellings in Sanandaj based on the above indicators and the extent to which sociological and contextual factors have affected each dimension of social capital.Theoretical FrameworkThe theoretical framework of the current research is based on the theories available in the field of social capital and the studies conducted in Iran and around the world on the research title. The structure of social capital is investigated here based on the socio-cultural dimensions of the Mehr Dwellings project. Following the discussion, the conceptual model of the research, which involves the link between the research literature and the results, is formulated in the concluding section.MethodologyThe current research is a quantitative survey and therefore involves a method of data collection in which certain groups of people are asked to answer a certain number of specific questions, which are the same for all respondents. The research population includes all the households in the Mehr Dwellings in Sanandaj in 2019. According to the statistics published by Kurdistan Province Directorate-General for Roads and Urban Development, there are 38,000 Mehr Dwellings in the whole province, of which 13,606 have been built and submitted in Sanandaj, where a population of 43,091 people lives (Kurdistan Province Directorate-General for Roads and Urban Development, 2018). The statistical sample includes people over eighteen years of age residing in 7,600 Mehr Dwellings in Baharan Neighborhood in 2019. The sample size was specified through Cochran’s formula, based on which a size of 340 people was estimated; given the possibility of drop in the sample size, 10% was added to this number, and 374 people were finally selected to make up the study sample. The sampling methods included clustering according to Mehr Dwellings blocks and random selection of people over 18 years of age. In the selection of the samples, we tried to observe the age and sex combination as far as possible. The research tool was a researcher-made questionnaire, the formal and content validity of which were evaluated by experts in the fields of urban development and sociology. Moreover, the validity of the questions was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as 0.849, which indicates the appropriate reliability and validity. As a research measurement tool, the SPSS version 21 software was used to analyze the data in two sections: descriptive and inferential.Results and DiscussionThe findings of the research demonstrated that there are significant positive relationships between the social capital of residents of Mehr Dwellings and a number of the variables making up the level of apartment life standards, including the degree of neighborhood relations, the level of acquaintance with the social environment, satisfaction with the place of residence, access to facilities, and the quality of urban services and infrastructures, and the contextual variables of residence background, income, and marital status. The statistical results demonstrated that there is no significant relationship between the residents’ social capital and the variables of social relations and type of residence and contextual variables (age, gender, occupation, and academic degree). Apartment life standards and social capital among the residents of Baharan Mehr Dwellings will not change overnight, because the residents of these blocks are mainly immigrants from villages, unemployed people, female householders, urban subordinates in sociological terms. Corridors of social relations are limited, while there are stable conditions from another point of view. Although the residents’ harmony has undergone major changes during the past two years due to the high costs of housing, fundamental measures need to be taken by the institutions and trustees in the urban area. According to the results of the research, important actions to be taken in the current conditions include the participation of citizens in the affairs of the neighborhood, enhancement of the infrastructure and access networks, formation of civil institutions, and establishment of service and security institutions.ConclusionThe results of the multivariate regression analysis also indicate that the variables of apartment life standards, neighborhood relations, and level of acquaintance impact the social capital of the residents of Mehr Dwellings and explain 32% of the changes in the dependent variable.
Alireza Karimi; hossein daneshmehr
Abstract
Parks are regarded as constituting one of the most important spaces in Tehran, Iran. One of the oldest, largest parks in the city, Sorkhe-Hesar Forest Park, located at busy urban nodes, has unique functions. Optimal use of the space is possible when users feel secure therein. Although known as an extra-regional ...
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Parks are regarded as constituting one of the most important spaces in Tehran, Iran. One of the oldest, largest parks in the city, Sorkhe-Hesar Forest Park, located at busy urban nodes, has unique functions. Optimal use of the space is possible when users feel secure therein. Although known as an extra-regional park,it is visited mainly by residents of Municipal District 13 of Tehran. This can be accounted for by several factors, a major one being perception of security in the park among citizens. Due to the large area of the park and its partitioning, there cannot be a discussion of a single perception of security in the park. Furthermore, security is a multi-dimensional notion, where each of the dimensions may be perceived differently in different partitions of the park. Accordingly, the main purpose of the research is to investigate the perceptions of different aspects of security by visitors to different partitions of Sorkhe-Hesar Forest Park and to examine if there are significant differences between them. The park has been divided by the municipality into six partitions, including Khorgasht (‘picnic’), Eghamat-Entezar-Tafrih (‘stay-wait-fun’), Piyaderavi-Honarhaye Mohiti (‘walk-environmental arts’), Aramesh (‘peace’), Tafrihate Fa'al (‘amusement), and Tabiatgardi-Hefazat (‘ecotourism-conservation’). Due to the presence of wildlife and passage of animal species, the ecotourism-conservation partition has turned into a protected area in which tourists are not allowed. Therefore, the partition is excluded from the spatial domain of the study. This is a quantitative survey with a researcher-made questionnaire used as tool. The research population includes all the women and men aged 18 years or more visiting the five included partitions of Sorkhe-Hesar Park during the survey. Given the spatial domain under investigation, there was space and time sampling in addition to visitor sampling. The findings obtained from the 504 visitors in the sample were analyzed using SPSS and GIS. The six aspects of security perception in the above five partitions of Sorkhe-Hesar Park were found reliable, and there were significant differences between perceptions of financial, dignity, public property, and public order security in the partitions. The overall perception of security of the visitors was obtained through addition of their scores in the six aspects. The findings from the overall perceptions of security in the different partitions of the park demonstrated that the highest and lowest means concerned the stay-wait-fun and walk-environmental arts partitions, respectively. The differences between the overall perceptions of security in the different partitions were statistically significant. That is, citizens’ perception of security in the different partitions of Sorkhe-Hesar Park can explain their decisions to visit or not visit them to a great extent. The perception of security in the different partitions of the park can be enhanced through use of citizens as a contributing factor, establishment of more security posts and police and municipality patrols, use of CCTV, establishment of weekend markets, construction and development of educational and cultural centers such as mosques and libraries and presentation of courses in various fields, enhancement of cellular coverage, equipment of less crowded passages with proper lighting, installation of cluster lights in clusters, etc.
