The Effect of Place Attachment- Walking- on Health Issue at Neighborhood Level, Case Study: Motahary Neighborhood in Mashhad City

Growing urbanization in recent decades has caused new challenges in the contemporary cities. Because of the extent of urban issues and the complexity of them, we have to solve them in a sustainable way. These days with the emphasis on urban planning, design and management are less prior and tangible aspects of urban life are more important than before such as many researches and many studies which start designing and planning from the smallest unit in urbanization (neighborhoods). From the public health point of view focusing on neighborhood-scale because of social factors is considered as an important issue. Walking is considered as the most important part of physical activity and it causes improving health condition among society. Urban planning and designing can help us to have better urban space which has positive effects on walking. The main aim of this essay is improving public health throughout walking. Therefore, studying place attachment as an important factor which is related to places where people live and walk can help to reach to some indexes which are helpful for designer and planner to design walkable spaces. Therefore what has been investigated in this study, at the first place is whether the sense of attachment to the place at district level (in the Motahari neighbor) has correlation with the amount of walking? Or if this sense has a relationship with individual purpose of people for walking (optional or mandatory Walking)? After that indexes of sense of place attachment and their relation with walking will be examined. The research method is based on questionnaire and for analyzing data SPSS software has been used. 200 people who live in Motahary neighborhood were asked to participate in this study. The findings of this study can help designers and urban planners to make better decisions to improve health in urban areas by increasing the amount of walking especially optional walking. Analysis of data from questionnaires present here in three parts.
A) Descriptive statistics of walking in the neighborhood
B: Analysis correlation between sense of place attachment and walking
C: Checking correlation between indexes of place attachment and Optional walking
Studies show that 70% of respondents’ only physical activity is walking. The issue represents the importance of walking as the most important part of physical activity. A closer look to this amounts and comparing them to the amount of walking which is suggested by World Health Organization shows that 50% of respondents walk in their neighborhood more than 150 minutes a week (amount of walking which is recommended by World Health Organization). However, only 27% of people walk 300 minutes or more per a week ((amount of walking which is recommended for reaching higher level of health by World Health Organization). Studying correlation between the sense of place attachment and walking purpose shows a significant relationship between this two. This means that by increasing sense of place attachment the amount of optional walking in this neighborhood is increasing. When optional activities carried out, it will certainly have greater positive impact on human health. Therefore, paying more attention to the indexes which are related to sense of place attachment, is very important. The priority of this indexes will be shown below.
• Age with the adaptive coefficient of 0,440
• Job with the adaptive coefficient of 0,351
• Neighborhood beauty with adaptive coefficient of 0,372
• Social interaction and satisfaction with the underlying position of neighborhoods with adaptive coefficient of 0,341
• Educational level with adaptive coefficient of 0,336.
• Available Facilities with adaptive coefficient of 0,319
• Maintenance of urban spaces with adaptive coefficient of 0.302
• Sex with adaptive coefficient of 0,296
• The period of residence in the neighborhood with adaptive coefficient of 0,250
The results show that the design indexes in this regard which are very important and should be considered by designers in neighborhood (In this study Motahary neighbor) include attention to beauty (design neighbor with better beauty aspects), creating a platform for social interaction, attention to the available facilities for residents as well as attention to the maintenance of urban spaces (which should be considered by city managers and the public policy as well). Other indexes, such as gender, education, etc., and totally individual components of the overall index, also have indirect and direct effects and they are better to be considered in design.