Evaluation of the Role of Urban Pedestrian Streets in Improving the Urban Vitality and Social Interactions (Case Study: Pedestrian Street of Rasht)

In recent decades, due to the rapid growth of the population and irregular expansion of the cities and the dominance of the vehicle in the streets, the pedestrian role in the urban spaces has been neglected. This issue led to the formation of tedious spaces and away from social interactions. Therefore, to create the vital and human-centered spaces and provide a ground to establish social interactions, the urban managers and planners sought to design and construct the streets with the maximum social role. Nowadays, these streets are called pedestrian streets and are among the principal public and vital spaces of the city. The access to these streets in the form of walking provides social interactions and relationships for the individuals and plays a significant role in creating urban vitality. The current study aims to investigate the effect of the quality of the pedestrian streets in the vitality and social interactions among the citizens as well as explaining the relationships among these factors by studying the physical quality, vitality, and social interactions in the pedestrian street of the Rasht city center.