Developing a Tool for Measuring the Compatibility between Urban Living Space and the Citizens’ Need for Physical Activity and its Application in Hijab Neighborhood of Mashhad

The growth in urbanization during the recent decades has increases healthcare, social, and economic inequalities at a large scale among the residents of many cities. One of the most important consequences of this trend is the tendency of citizens towards a sedentary lifestyle in Iran and around the world. Lack of physical activity, as one of the important issues in public health, is related to the living space and the daily activities of citizens and residents. Since there are no clear universal measures for measuring this phenomenon in urban space and environment, it is necessary to develop and propose a number of criteria for measuring the effects of physical activity on the quality of urban living space. In this regard, using criteria obtained from previous studies in the form of a theoretical framework, a measuring tool can be identified. Accordingly, the main objective of the current study is to develop a measuring tool for the quality of urban living space with an emphasis on the opportunities for physical activity and to evaluate the obtained measures in the area selected for the study, i.e. Hijab Neighborhood of Mashhad. The current study is a descriptive analytical one. Therefore, the theoretical concepts are gathered through library studies, and then, by developing a questionnaire, the obtained measuring tool is administered to the residents in Hijab Neighborhood. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS software application. Based on the results, factor analysis shows that physical activity of citizens is influenced by four variables including the functional variable, availability variable, social variable, and aesthetic variable. Based on the results obtained from the analysis and the effect size of each of these variables on the variable of physical activity, it can be concluded that the functional factor has the highest level of impact on the quality of urban living space considering the opportunities provided for citizens to have physical activities. The availability factor, social factor, and the aesthetic factor are the other criteria affecting the level of citizens’ physical activity, respectively.