Explaining the effects of urban sidewalks on strengthening the sense of place, liveliness and improving collective memories of citizens (a case study of sidewalks in areas six and eight of Shiraz city)

Considering the importance of humans and their interactions with urban spaces, today, there is a human-oriented approach to urban management and the same has led to the creation of many urban spaces. Sidewalks, as one of the most active and youthful aspects of the urban space, are a suitable platform for the presence of pedestrians. As such, this research aims to analyze and classify the existing sidewalks of the sixth and eighth districts of the city of Shiraz based on their physical components (natural and man-made elements), activities and events (recreational, social, religious, everyday activities, etc.) and semantic components (identity and sense of belonging, association). After completing the questionnaires by the sample population, the Kolmograph Smirnov (K_S) statistical technique was used to extract inferential statistics, , and then the acquired data were analyzed in the SPSS software, due to the parametric nature of the data from the One Sample T-Test and the average comparison. The research findings showed that the sidewalks of District 6 (Ostad Shajarian, Kesai, Behesht) have permanent use in terms of spending leisure time and are main space in terms of social interactions, entertainment and sports whereas; the sidewalks of District 8 (Ahmadi, Zandiyeh, around the Karimkhani Citadel) are permanent in terms of economic-social and cultural-religious activities, and in terms of their main function, they include the dominant economic and social elements. With this description, it is necessary to organize and develop these sidewalks according to the users’ motives and relative advantages that would subsequently uplift the satisfaction with respect to this type of urban spaces.