The Role of Urban Space Signs in Promoting Place AttachmentCase Study: Zanjan Neighborhoods

The city as a human living environment must have the ability to create a perception of spatial identity, a sense of belonging and a perception of beauty, which are closely related to each other. In the meantime, buildings, cultural spaces, social arenas and in general, any element that is desirable and provides a suitable platform for the formation of collective events can be an urban symbol. Cultural and identity buildings, markets, nodes, hangouts, historical spaces play the role of urban landmarks and with the help of forming an accurate and clear mental image of the city, they shape the physical identity of the urban space. As a result, they are effective in promoting a place attachment. Today, the signs in urban spaces have faded, and this issue has become an introduction to weakening place attachment in urban neighborhoods, and further strongly affects the meaning of urban spaces. Zanjan city is one of the cities with a long history and identity and signs of urban indicators have undergone social changes during different periods, and now the physical space of the city is such that the indicators and signs of identity can be clearly found in the neighborhoods of the city. Therefore, in this study, the aim is to investigate the effect of urban signs on place attachment. In this regard, six neighborhoods of Zanjan have been studied and compared as examples of this study.

The present research is applied and descriptive-analytical research in terms of purpose and method, respectively. Data collection was done by documentary-library method and field method. In total, 300 questionnaires were prepared in these six neighborhoods, which 50 questionnaires were distributed equally in each neighborhood. To check the (formal) validity of the questionnaire, the opinions of university professors, experts and relevant specialists have been used, and also to check its reliability, pretest has been used. In this way, 30 questionnaires were distributed and completed outside the study area and the Cronbach's alpha coefficient calculated for different parts of the questionnaire, was higher than 0.7 which show the reliability of the instrument. A completely randomized questionnaire was used to distribute the questionnaire in the study area. SPSS software, Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression tests were exerted to analyze the collected data in accordance with the research questions.

According to the results, the place attachment of the six neighborhoods is as follows:The place attachment of the residents in Sabzeh Maidan neighborhood 70%, Saadi neighborhood 52%, Black Alley neighborhood 64%, Ansarieh neighborhood 64%, Golshahr neighborhood 48% and Karmandan neighborhood 62%.Correlation coefficient test also shows a significant and high intensity linear relationship. From the results of linear regression, it is clear that the value of the determined coefficient is equal to 0.511, which indicates the ability of the independent variable to explain the variance of the dependent variable. That is, the independent variable explains 51% of the dependent changes, and the rest of these changes, known as the error quantity squares, are influenced by non-model variables. Also, the value of Watson's camera is equal to 1.45, which indicates that the remains are independent of each other.

Findings show that people with a high place attachment have many signs in their mind maps of the neighborhood. These people refer to symptoms that are physical and functional and belong to both physical and functional forms. Most of these people are located in historically and middle-aged neighborhoods where there are more signs. In the second level, people with average place attachment are in the middle and historical neighborhoods. These people also had the most signs in their cognitive maps that were of physical and activity type. They also belonged to a physical and active species. Finally, last level show people with a low place attachment were mostly living in new neighborhoods, where they indicated fewer signs in their mind maps, and these signs were mostly purely physical or purely functional.Findings show that there is a direct relationship between the signs of urban spaces and the place attachment with 0.623% and with a strong and significant intensity. This means that with the increase in the number of urban space signs in the studied areas, the place attachment also increases among the residents. And with the expansion of this, more suitable conditions and context are provided to promote the place attachment in the neighborhoods. In general, we can point to the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable of approval and a significant relationship between them.