Investigating the Perception of Social Security of Citizens and the Factors Affecting It: A Case Study of Izeh

Security is one of the basic requirements for a city and a tenet for the emergence and persistence of urban comfort that get further importance, and are extended as urbanism and urban population density rises (Shaiye, 2007). The Social Security as part of the social, economic and political policy within each unit is of great importance (Orkut, 2015). The concept of social security and citizen's sense of security can be a key element in order to achieve the ideal city and away from harm-urban and social biases be considered.
In fact, feeling of insecurity is a major obstacle to a citizen’s social activities especially in certain arenas,which causes the continuation and intensification of certain social anomalies, while on the other hand,it reduces identity values and social capital. Thus, the study and identification of influential factors in this regard are very important. The problem is that the city of Izeh in recent years has faced rising criminal charges as the city has had physical growth and fluctuations in its population. Therefore, this research aims to examine the sense of social security of citizens and the factors affecting it in Izeh. The principal questions are as follows: Are urban spaces, as a factor in citizen's feeling of insecurity, effective? Do the sense of belonging to the neighborhood, knowing the neighborhood and the duration of residence in the neighborhood affect the citizen's feeling of security?
The research was an applied and descriptive-analytic research. The data were gathered using library search and field study (questionnaires and interviews).The target population included all citizens over 15 years of age of the five districts of Izeh. Cochran formula was used to obtain a sample of 322 people. To have high accuracy, 347 samples were selected according to the population of each region. For the reliability of the questions, the questionnaireswere distributed to 30 residents. TheCronbach's alpha coefficient was0.81 percent, which showed that the internal correlation of variables wasgreat. Finally the collected data were analyzed by SPSS software.For map editing, GIS software(Krigin model) was used.The city of Izehis the capital of Izeh province with a population of 5115 in 1966 and 122013 people in the2011 census.In fact, 116,898 people were added to Izeh population during the years 1966-2011.
According to the results of the questionnaires distributed in five districts, 53.89% of the population were females and 46.10% were males. The results show that given the obtained mean, citizens of Izeh have feeling of spatial insecurity. Eastern citizen's feeling of insecurity is the highest, while western citizen's feeling of insecurity is the lowest.
In this study, according to the mean obtained from the five districts, the eastern region is one of the poorest and most disadvantagedspaces. In terms of spatial security, they have the worst condition with mean of 2.3. Among the five districts of the city, there is difference regarding the sense of spatial security, but there is no difference regarding feeling of social security. Furthermore, the duration of residence in the neighborhood has no relationship with feeling of social security of citizens.On the contrary, the results ofFathiand Rezvan showed that the duration of residence in the neighborhood has a relationship with feeling of insecurity among citizens. However, the satisfaction level of the neighborhood, a sense of belonging and ownership, and a sense of security and comfort inthe residential neighborhood has a significant inverse relationship with the citizen's feeling of insecurity.
The Criminology Research Center in Paris states that 23 percent of young offenders find a chance to commit crime in urban spaces with high population density and housing problems, which can be a reminder that urban structure and its problems can affect the rate of crime and consequently affect the security of citizens. This can involve the possibility of drop in the sense of security from the perspective of citizens in terms of economic, cultural and even religious issues. That is why strategies focusing on citizen safetycan affect all aspects of policy and decision making processes in the field of urban planning.According to Jacobs (1961), Volleyball and Fallic (2006) and according to the results obtained from the London Conference, when resident's feeling of security about their living place rises, it makes the people have control and supervision over their neighborhood, followed by a sense of ownership and belonging together. This increases satisfaction, which increases resident's relative comfort.