The Role of Space and Physical Environment in Realizing Iranian-Islamic Creative City

Creative cities are centers of innovation, technology, and transformation of ideas into wealth. Creative city is a concept with high impact, meaning that it affects – and is influenced by – all aspects and dimensions of the city. One of the impressible dimensions is the peripheral and spatial dimensions of the city, which means that the physical structure of the city should attract people and facilitate their living conditions. In this way, a city will be a desirable space for the life of the creative class. Various indicators have been presented to measure the creativity of cities, all of which emphasize the physical environment and the social and cultural conditions of the society. The purpose of this study is to identify the role of physical aspects and space in the formation of the Iranian-Islamic creative city. To this end, a questionnaire survey and in-depth interview with students and scholars of theology were used to identify the physical and environmental factors that could provide the ground to accomplish the creative city in the urban community of Iran. First, 230 five-item Likert-type questionnaires were completed by the participants of the study followed by 15 in-depth interviews with Isfahan scholars of theology. Confirmatory factor analysis and content analysis were used to analyze the data. The analysis was performed in four sections: Women''s civil rights, tourism and communication, development of new centers, and transportation and traffic. The results showed that: 1) The physical environment of the city should be designed to protect the women’s rights and suit their presence in the city; 2) the establishment of various recreation and tourism centers should  be in conjunction with the utilization of existing opportunities and historical potentials and strengthen the tourism industry and attract the creative class; 3) proper development and distribution of scientific centers will play an important role in realizing the creative city; 4) finally, the transportation system and the sustainable communication network should be an integral part of the urban environment.