Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Aliakbar Salaripour
• Zahra Seif Reihani, ¹
• Narges Taleb vali alah ²

¹ University of Guilan

² Yazd University

Abstract

Just as there are components that attachment to a place affects them, there are also components that affect attachment to a place. The current research tries to determine the positive and negative factors affecting attachment to a place. Using purposive sampling, 89 participants were selected. Each participant was asked to prepare about 3 photos of the environments they are attached to. After receiving the photos, individual in-depth interview sessions were held. Thematic analysis has been used to achieve the purpose of the research. Also, the collected images were categorized based on the type of place and geographical scale. In this research, 23 positive factors (memories, similarity, symbol, positive feelings, peace, comfort, security, balance of city and nature, connection with nature, pleasant smell, taste, touch, hearing, aesthetic, unique identity, support from interests, location, type of housing, personal growth, preservation of past heritage, privacy, antiquity, social cohesion) and 7 negative factors (environmental damage, economic recession, urban management inefficiency, loneliness, ignorance and neglect of society, forgetfulness cultural activities, negative emotions) affecting place attachment were identified. The results of the research show that aesthetic, memories and positive feelings have the most positive effect on attachment to a place, and the inefficiency of urban management, negative emotions and economic stagnation have the most negative effect on attachment to a place. After examining the pictures taken by the interviewees, 7 categories of recreational space, object space, neighborhood, home, social place, commercial place and cultural-educational-administrative uses were obtained. Recreational space, home, neighborhood, commercial place, object space, cultural-educational-administrative uses and social place, respectively, obtained the highest frequency. Among the people whose place of attachment is recreational spaces, houses, commercial places or cultural-educational-office uses, the aesthetic factor has the highest percentage. Based on the interviews conducted, regarding social places, memories, positive emotions, aesthetic issues, age were identified as the most important factors affecting attachment to a place. Most of the interviewees who paid attention to the neighborhood admitted that the inefficiency of urban management can have a negative effect on attachment to the place. Regarding the space of the object, the symbol obtained the highest frequency among the factors affecting the attachment to the place. Ambient space was the most common type of location, which includes places such as multi-story house, seaside path, market, etc. The uncontrollable space was the second most common scale, and one of its examples is coffee shop. Controllable space, which comes in third place, includes objects such as chairs. Since most of the places were environmental spaces, most of the reported factors are also in this scale. In addition, aesthetics, inefficiency of urban management, memories, positive feelings, unique identity, economic recession, age and symbol are 8 factors in all three scales. All the factors mentioned in the scale of environmental space are more abundant compared to the other two types. The aesthetic factor has the highest percentage in the scale of environmental space and uncontrollable space. Also, city management can increase citizens' attachment to the city by paying attention to positive and negative factors.

Keywords

• Keywords: Place attachment
• Qualitative-quantitative combined method
• thematic analysis
• the coastal city of Bandar-Anzali

Main Subjects

• Urban Planning