Assessing Desirability of Urban Public Spaces for Women's Attendance (Case Study: Zone 1 of Shiraz)

Security is one of the main components of citizens' presence in public places. Whereas women are more exposed to social threats, ensuring the security of urban spaces is of more importance for the presence of this group in these places. The present study is aimed at assessing the security of public spaces in zone 1 of Shiraz city for women.  

The present research is of descriptive-analytical type and the tool used for data processing is factor analysis in SPSS. A survey method has been used to collect data in the research. The indicators cited in the research have also been extracted through reviewing valid research documents. The statistical population of the study is pedestrian women in two benchmark urban areas in zone 1 of Shiraz. The sampling was implemented using Cochran method and systematic sampling method, and the total number of samples reached 150 cases.

Results of the present study indicate that the security of public places in zone 1, from the women's perspective in physical, functional and semantic dimensions is low; while in terms of social dimension, the level of security of these places is moderate. The results of factor analysis also indicate that in total, out of 27 indicators extracted, 5 important factors which highly contribute to promoting  women's security feeling  could be emphasized: creating the necessary background and infrastructure for the presence of women without any concerns (with specific value  of 2.493); quality of public place (with a specific value of 1.927); appropriate environmental design to prevent crime (with a specific value of 1.687); intimacy and friendliness  of the environment (with a special value of 1.437) and the independence of women to participate in public space (with a special value of 1.330). Combination of these factors indicates the conditions that may provide the required platform and ground for the security of women in the public places of Shiraz. Altogether, promoting women's security feeling in the urban spaces of Shiraz requires benefitting from several macro strategies such as designing a security-oriented environment, increasing spatial readability and providing the desired lighting of urban places. The feasibility of any of the aforesaid strategies requires the implementation and deployment of operational strategies aligned with these strategies