Measuring indicators of creating a sense of place in new urban developments (Case Study: Qods district)

The weakening nature of the place is one of the most important challenges facing contemporary cities. The contemporary citizen faces spaces without meaning and identity that have not yet turned into places. This is more important in new urban settlements, due to the lack of historical, identity, and existence backgrounds. The subject of this case study, the Qods district, located in the city of Qom, Iran, which suffers from disturbances in various aspects, is an example of new urban developments that require attention. The purpose of this research is to measure and analyze the importance of the components of the sense of place in the Qods district, to answer the following questions: What are the indicators of achieving a sense of place in the Qods district as a new urban development? How can one evaluate the effects of each component of the sense of place on the Qods settlement residents?

Theoretical Framework:

The term sense of place denotes people’s attachment and relation to the place, or the structure of feeling, as some have put it (Agnew, 1987, cited in Arefi, 1999: 180). Experts have held relatively similar viewpoints regarding the components of the sense of place and its indicators. In large part, most of these opinions have confirmed the physical environment, activity, and perception as the three main components. According to Shamai (1991), the sense of place consists of three phases. The first phase concerns belonging to a place, the middle phase is attachment to a place, and the final phase is commitment to a place (Shamai, 1991: 349). Hummon (1992) describes five levels of the sense of place, or place attachment, as follows: uncommitted placelessness, relativity, place alienation, divided rootedness, and cohesive rootedness (Cross, 2001: 10). As a result of the interdisciplinary nature of the concept of sense of place, numerous experts and schools of thought have offered various perspectives that can be said to have a lot of similarities and few differences. Different experts such as sociologists, geographers, environmental psychologists, anthropologists, architects, and urban planners have addressed the concept of sense of place in different ways in their studies. Among the numerous kinds of research conducted in different countries in the past half-century, most of the academic studies have been focused on conceptual analysis and formulation of theoretical models on the one hand and on evaluation of this category in different scales on the other.

This research was conducted through a mixed paradigm and a descriptive-analytical method. The data collection tools were library-documentary studies, and the population included 245 residents of the Qods district. The data analysis tools involved two descriptive and inferential analyzes using the statistical methods of Structural Equation Modeling and Pearson correlation test, implemented in the SPSS 23 and Amos Graphics 26 software. The conceptual model of this research consisted of 3 main components, i.e. form, activity, and perception, 12 indicators, and 45 sub-indices.

The results obtained from the second-order factor analysis model in this research indicate which of the components affecting the sense of place in the residents of the Qods district has a greater weight and effect in the induction of this concept to the residents. Based on the research findings, among the 3 identified components, 12 indicators, and 45 relevant sub-indicators, the functional-activity, perceptual-semantic, and physical-visual components, in that order, exhibit greater weights in the evaluation of the sense of place from the perspective of the Qods district inhabitants. Among the variables observed in the assumed model of this research, the factors of invitation, social participation, motivation, land use, and activity have greater weights in the specification of the residents’ sense of place. Moreover, the correlation between the conceptual components of the research indicates that there is a significant relationship between the three components of the sense of place in the residents of the Qods district. Furthermore, the measurement of the fitness of the conceptual model of the research, according to the indicators of structural equations, demonstrates that the model is desirable.

The following can be stated in response to the first research question as the indicators of achieving a sense of place in the Qods district as a new urban development: indicators of identity and authenticity, motivation, and mental image (in the perceptual-semantic component), indicators of land use and activity, accessibility, urban furniture, invitation, social participation, and safety-security (in the functional-activity component), and indicators of visual coherence, construction form, and visual richness (in the physical-visual component). In response to the second research question, the greater importance and weight of the functional-activity component than the perceptual and visual components indicates that if urban management pays more attention to the residents’ functional and social needs, the indicators of this component, as the most important factor in the induction of a sense of place, will have a greater impact. Moreover, the inferential analysis of the structural equation modeling in the evaluation of the indicators confirms that many indicators have received less attention in the Qods district, while these indicators can be effective on the residents’ continuity and satisfaction, their sense of attachment to the place of residence, and fulfillment of their mental expectations.