Analysis of the Sense of Safety for Women in Urban Public Spaces with Emphasis on Physical Elements (Case Study of Amol)

Urban public spaces are considered as one of the most important urban spheres, with the highest number of encounters and interactions among individuals. Therefore, proper use and quality of public space is an important issue to be taken into consideration. Due to this, the use of public spaces by women is sometimes influenced by socio-physical factors, which makes an obstacle to the use of these spaces for them. The purpose of this research was to measure the sense of safety in urban spaces for women. This research is a type of quantitative research and in terms of data collection method, it is considered as descriptive-analytic research.Questionnaire containing 61 questions was designed about urban spaces including squares, streets and parks in Amol, and distributed among 450 respondents. Data collected has been analyzed by SPSS, and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Kruskal-Wallis test was used. The results of the research show that there is a significant difference between the components of the sense of safety and the attitude of women in urban spaces. Results of the analysis by the priority of each component regarding the degree of satisfaction of women with the quality of public spaces in different areas show that in the streets and parks the least feeling of safety and the highest share of the satisfaction of women from the public spaces is in the squares. Finally, there is a significant difference between Women's attitude on sensing safety in urban spaces and variables such as age, education, occupation, and the frequency of use of urban public spaces per week.