Regeneration of Herat’s Chaharbagh Street to Promote its Place Identity

respond to users’ needs is essential. With the advent of the second wave of urban development in developing countries, part of urban fabrics affected by modernist interventions has changed and metamorphosed to the point that they have lost their meaning and function, consequently leading to the degradation of biological values and weakening of the identity of the place. With this continuing trend and the lack of attention to the background, these neighborhoods are being transformed into places devoid of meaning and identity fathomable by citizens.

 This study aims to extract the quality components of urban streets systematically by formulating the process of regenerating urban streets with a focus on promoting identity and analyzing Chaharbagh Street to propose complementary interventions to further promote its identity.

This study used a mixed approach using the descriptive-analytical method. Triangulation was used to strengthen the research and increase the validity of the findings. The focus group method and a public questionnaire were used to collect the data. The data from the focus group were analyzed using coding, and the data from the questionnaire were analyzed using the Friedman method and Pearson correlation coefficient in SPSS.

 The theoretical results revealed essential components of urban streets: access, spatial continuity, safety, and security, inclusiveness, and social mixing, quality of the public space, enclosure and transparency, diversity, mixed land uses, and supporting stakeholders. Modifying accessibility and adjusting the size of urban blocks and mixed land uses, designing urban furniture, and strengthening citizens’ perceptions of space (by increasing legibility, the proportion of new forms, and spatial unity) can improve the identity of Chaharbagh Street in Herat.