Measuring satisfaction with the quality of urban spaces and providing strategies to improve it: Case of Erfan Tourist Region in Shiraz

ne of the important issues in urban planning is the attention to public spaces. Since the early 1960s, many practitioners in the field of architecture and urban planning havepointed to the decline of public areas and even the death of collective spaces due to a permanent drop in quality in urban spaces. Recently, the quality of public spaces has increasingly become an important research topic in various fields related to urban development. There are a number of problems in Erfan Tourist Region in Shiraz such as the lack of facilities required for urban spaces, traffic problems, and traffic jams, the lack of the capacities required for crowded periods as problems typical of urban spaces. Through the review of valid literature in the field, 23indicators were selected in this paper to measure the quality of urban spaces. Subsequently, these indicators were tested through a questionnaire in four areas under analysis. Using the factor analysis, the factors determining the quality of urban spaces were determined. In the next stage, the four urban spaces were ranked based on six factors related to the quality of urban spaces. According to the results, Quran Gate was ranked first in terms of urban space quality factors. Besides, the priority of intervention in urban space quality indicators was determined based on the relative importance of these indicators using regression analysis The intervention priorities for the areas under study including Qaem Square, Abu al-Klam Square, Quran Gate, and Hafezieh Footpath were satisfaction with the attractiveness, the economic efficiency of the place, and improvement of accessibility and permeability to the place, respectively. Finally, a number ofstrategies were suggested based on the insights from the study.