Urban Sociology
sahar esmaeilpourhamedani; Esmaeil shieh; Kianoosh Zakerhaghighi
Abstract
A common type of crime in modern cities, vandalism has had many negative consequences, causing social and cultural problems, financial losses, etc., and its negative image is more persistent in public urban spaces than those of other crimes. Moreover, the necessity of concern for the issue of vandalism ...
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A common type of crime in modern cities, vandalism has had many negative consequences, causing social and cultural problems, financial losses, etc., and its negative image is more persistent in public urban spaces than those of other crimes. Moreover, the necessity of concern for the issue of vandalism becomes clearer than for other crimes by consequences such as the sense of insecurity, feeling of being victimized, sense of carelessness about urban spaces, ignorance of aesthetic aspects. At the same time, a group including psychologists and sociologists believe in the impact of internal and personality factors, and other groups including architects and urban planners believe in the effect of spatial conditions on vandalism. The main view of this paper is based on the simultaneous roles of both factors. The major purpose is to examine the role of setting and spatial conditions in prevention of vandal behavior through development of hazard perception and fear of crime commitment given the environmental, social, cultural, and other conditions in Iranian urban spaces. The case study investigates the Borje Ghorban neighborhood in the city of Hamadan, Iran, evaluated given the internal factors as containing potential vandals. This is an analytical documentary study that examines the relationships between the variables with the method of correlation. The paper assumes that vandals are uniformly distributed in the public urban spaces of the neighborhood. The spatial variables and prevalence of vandal behavior were extracted from objective field observations and questionnaires. The data were then analyzed with SPSS and statistical tests. The roles of location, monitoring, and population density were considered as spatial indicators under investigation. In data collection from the passages in the public urban spaces in the Borje Ghorban neighborhood, a very important role was considered for movement to make it possible to classify and separate the information on the target passages and spaces. The parameters considered in the separation of the spaces included wave movement, change of level, the floor, typicality, details, publicity, complexity, suitability, scale, street lighting, and here and there. The assessment of the independent variable of monitoring involved parameters such as inside-outside and outside-inside control, land use installation and space involvement in time periods, and street restaurant tables. The data concerning the independent variable of population density were collected given the available documents and residential density based on land uses including local and extra-local uses. Residential population density and peripheral population density were assessed at the same time. The parameters considered for collection of data on the role of the setting included the quality of successive views, sense of the setting, healthy environment, healthy image, healthy behavior, and covert spaces in public urban spaces. The findings were consistent with the theoretical expectations and research literature, and the results indicated that the quality and quantity of monitoring, population density, and setting are effective on vandals’ hazard perception as they commit vandalism. In other words, presence at particular settings causes a sense of fear of crime commitment due to the expected consequences, which ultimately prevents vandal behavior, or causes it to occur elsewhere.
