Investigating the Effect of the Role of Actors in Placemaking and Shaping Place Attachment (Case Study: Islamshahr)

The difference in the role and level of actors' intervention in shaping the place, caused by different urban development policies, leads to different results in the place making.The aim of this research is understanding this difference and its impact on the final product (shaping a place and through it the residents’ place attachment). Based on this, the place attachment has been evaluated in the neighborhoods of Eslamshahr with different origins and roles of the actors.For this purpose, the quantitative approach was used to find a significant relationship between the place attachment and the level of intervention of actors. The method of data collection in assessing place attachment was survey by using a questionnaire. In order to evaluate the role of actors, document review and in-depth interview with informants are done. The studied neighborhoods categorized in three types based on based on actors with different roles: "actors with unofficial origins (people)", "actors with official origins (government)" and "actors with a combination of official and unofficial origins (people and government)". The results show in the neighborhoods have formed under the influence of a combination of different actors, place attachment is higher than the neighborhoods have formed only under the influence of official (government) or unofficial (local community) actors. In other words, it can be concluded that the interaction between the actors and supplying the interests of all the involved groups can lead to the transformation of the space into a place for the residents, and thereby improving their place attachment.