The scale of development in urban areas with an emphasis on the satisfaction level standards of urban furniture (Case Study: Abarkuh Localities City)

The city is a great artwork creating according to its size and the number of its population. The ultimate goal of the city is to create a pleasant and comfortable environment for people. Urban space is the place where people spend the most of their time in it, establishing maximum communication with each other and their surroundings. So, makeup the space and make the necessary facilities are presently known as the urban furniture which has a particular importance there (Zangabadi and Tabrizi, 2008: 46). In the current urban life, we can hardly find anyone who does not deal with urban furniture, shelter, bus stations, box office, park benches or road signs. Urban furniture organizes much of the activities in the city and increases citizen's using quality of street, square, park and other urban areas. The main feature of urban furniture is its general application. This group of products has direct contact with the masses more than anything else (Mortazaee, 2002: 13).

This study is an applied research in nature. Its research method is analytical-descriptive and its data have been provided from the library resources including (note taking, internet) and field (questionnaire, interview). In this study, collecting theoretical foundations have been done using inductive and deductive methods and result generalization have been in apriority form. The research statistical population includes Abarkooh city. According to Health Net, Abarkooh city in 2013 has had nine regions consisting of 16685 inhabitants. Based on Cochran formula, the number of necessary samples to adjust the questionnaire in order to measure the satisfaction of urban furniture standards was 263 households. Tthey have been distributed compared to the population of each region. In order to measure and categorize the urban regions, 20 items of urban furniture were distributed by obtaining selected experts’ opinions and by using Delphi technique valuing in questionnaire form. It should be noted that in this study in order to measure the satisfaction level of standards of urban furniture, at first 31 items were extracted through studying taken research in the field of urban furniture. Then in order to select the items which are the most consistent with the subject and also the weighting of items, the Delphi technique has been used. So, after the extraction of the final items (20 items) by experts, the subjects were asked to assign weight to items based on their importance. For this purpose, 12 experts were selected in the field of urban planning and city management and items were sent to the experts in the form of a questionnaire. 8 out of 12 submissions were received back which have formed the final weight of items. Finally, in order to categorize the regions, Oreste technique has been used.

The results of describing the characteristics of individuals show that out of 263 subjects, with the age range of 35-45 years, 242 (%92.01) have been males and 21 (%7.99) have been female. The average size of the household is equal to size of 3.4 persons. Analytical research findings can be explained in two separate parts: 1. Based on the findings, it is specified that citizen satisfaction level of urban furniture standards in 3 districts of Abarkooh city is estimated at a low level that 1 to 3 means (very low, low and moderate) which is a confirmation of this claim in the decision matrix. Based on Oreste findings, it was specified that Golkaran, Imamzadeh Ahmad and Nabadan regiones have been in one to three ranks of satisfaction and Darb Ghale, Jahanestan and Darvaze Meydan regiones have been in 7 to 9 ranks of leveling with emphasis on satisfaction from urban furniture standards.

Today city men, in order to satisfy their social needs and to fulfill social roles, need spaces with appropriate limit, conditions and facilities. In contemporary cities, urban public spaces as one of the skeletal essential elements of the city have had general and social context and meeting the social needs of human beings is of crucial importance. However, in the cities of our country, urban general spaces are undergone loss of identity, uncertainty of skeletal spatial and inappropriate programming and their elements and equipments including furniture which have great impact on the quality of urban spaces do not have necessary conditions and required features of users. In this regard, Abarkooh city is not an exception of this matter. So, in order to supply the physical and spiritual welfare of the citizens, considering the social cultural conditions of society, improving the quality of urban spaces, creating a visually beautiful scenery in the city and researching in this field by using associated softwares, doing field studies and public polls would be very essential in order to obtain information of citizens opinions.