Improvement of Spatial Quality of Urban Parks in Order to Increase Social Efficiency and Prevent Abnormal Crimes Case Study: Mellat Park in Ilam

Quality of urban environments is created as a result of a complex combination of urban physical elements, existence of urban activities and natural elements of the environment. One of the standards for cities environmental quality is the existence of public green spaces where citizens are able to interact with each other with safety and comfort. Nowadays, one of the main concerns of urban planners is creating collective spaces to enhance social interaction of citizens. Urban parks as one of the collective spaces in addition to being as a place to spend leisure time and have entertainment may provide a place for gathering of people and as result it may increase urban interactions. However, vitality of urban parks requires having collective spaces qualities that the lack of such qualities causes deserting these spaces, and as result becomes a suitable bed for social crimes in cities. The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify the quality of Mellat park space and the reasons why people don’t use it and also providing guide lines to increase its social productivity and prevent it to change to a place for unsuitable uses. The present research is both library and field study including physical investigation of the park and attaining subjective perception of the citizen about the park through questionnaires and interviews. The results indicate the lack of appropriate public services, poor lighting and furniture, buildings with no use, inconsistent properties around the park and poor entries were the most effective reasons for lack of using this park by people. Moreover, bad perception, and feeling of insecurity by citizens had a great influence on the variables of age and gender. Therefore, considering the inevitable importance and impact of urban green spaces in improving the quality of urban life strategies are presented for improving efficiency to social promote and crime prevention and abnormalities reduction.