Consumer culture and its spatial representation in Mid-Sized cities (Study samples: Semnan, Rasht, Hamedan, Qazvin)

Frequent signs have been revealed in the context of the development of the neoliberal capitalist city model with the branding strategy and competition of fragmented regions and cities - which has led to the consumerism of the urban community and the consumption of the city for whatever the city consumes and earns large profits; including the commodification of the city, the development of urban commercial services to consume more and the allocation of the best urban land for consumption. In this regard, the paper aims to provide the definition, recognition, identification, and adaptation / non-adaptation in a theoretical and experimental framework. However, the main question is “to what extent is the emergence of a postmodern culture of consumption in the city?  While recognizing the spatial characteristics of a consumer city, the paper aims to investigate how the general trends of urban consumerism are represented in conditions of middle cities in Iran. The research method is applied in terms of purpose and due to its bond to economic, social, and cultural factors and its physical representation, is considered explanatory. CFA is used to extract the spatial characteristics of consumer culture in the city. The initial model obtained in four middle cities of the country is tested with a total population of 1835,000 samples. In the case of Cochran's formula, the minimum required sample size for this statistical population is 385, while the questionnaires distributed among residents were 403.   Referencing the theoretical literature, indicators, and criteria of the consumer city were extracted and then the conceptual model was drawn. The model was validated using confirmatory factor analysis.  The findings show that, however, the spatial features of consumer culture are: large-scale designs, department stores, shopping malls, discount stores, and soft infrastructure. The resulted goodness of fit confirms the desirability of the model and the t-values, which are between first and second-order variables, show that the relationship is significant. Moreover, the path, type, and frequency of the relationship between the above-mentioned latent variables and the latent variable of the consumer city are plotted using structural equations.  Accordingly, the independent variable of department stores with (ß) path coefficient of 0.83 had the highest; and the independent variable of large-scale designs with a path coefficient of 0.14, had the lowest relationship with the consumer city.   The answer to the research question, can be discussed with the help of the spatial model of the consumer city. However, by proving the spatial model of the research in four study samples, it can be said with more confirmation that the consumer city has crossed the border of necessary and middle consumption and entered the scope of luxury consumption; and its spatial representations can be seen at least in the components of large-scale designs, department stores, arcades or shopping malls, discount stores, and soft infrastructure. The results show that the consumption of space in the cities of the country has appeared in different forms and has manifested itself in the levels of body, appearance, and face of the city.