Evaluation of Effective Indicators on Attachment to Contemporary Residential Neighborhoods Case Study: Shahrak-e-Daneshgah, Yazd

Extended Abstract
In recent decades, the level of neighborhood attachment to residential areas in urban contemporary neighborhoods has been debilitated through the use of patterns and styles of urban planning and non-indigenous architecture in a way that focuses on purely physical components leading to settlements with the least social interactions and not attendance in collective spaces. However, in the past, it seems that one of the main features of any neighborhood has been the close connection between the environment components and the sense of place attachment and traditional neighborhoods have always had the highest level of residents' attachment to themselves. Shahrak-e- Daneshgah of Yazd is one of the new neighborhoods in the contemporary context of the city that seems to have not been successful in shaping the relationship between residents and the residential environment, also it is involved with some problems such as reduction of residents' communication, lack of formation of collective memories and events, diminishment of sense of belonging and dependence as well as the decline of residents' attachment to their living environment. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to identify and evaluation the effective indicators on attachment to residential neighborhoods in the Shahrak-e- Daneshgah of Yazd. Also it seeks to answer two questions:1) What are the effective indicators on residents' attachment to contemporary residential areas?
 2) How much is the extent and intensity of the impact of each of indicators on the residents' attachment to the Shahrak-e- Daneshgah of Yazd?
 
This article has used three research methods including survey, descriptive and correlation. In addition, a questionnaire that according to the theoretical model of research was used to collect information from residents to assess their sense of neighborhood attachment, as well as library resources and field studies to complete the required data to conduct research. The apparent validity of the research instrument (questionnaire) was confirmed by Yazd university professors and its reliability was confirmed by using of Cronbach's alpha test. In order to measure the variables in the questionnaire, the five-point Likert scale and systematic sampling method were used. The volume of the statistical population includes all residents of the area (7581 people) and the sample size has been calculated using Cochran's formula at 95% confidence level with q = p = 0.5 and d = 0.05 with error. Finally, likely to distortion of some questionnaires, the sample size of 320 was considered. To test the obtained data through a questionnaire, SPSS software was used. Also, multivariate regression was used to excavate the data and explain the effect of indicators on neighborhood attachment among the available analysis tests.
 
According to the theoretical model of the research, the variable of neighborhood attachment was considered as a dependent one and the variables of residential characteristics, social interactions, presence, individual feeling, collective feeling, physical, semantic and functional were considered as independent ones of this research. Due to the qualitatively variables, measurable indicators for each of the variables are included in the theoretical model of the research. Independent variables explain totally 70.9% of the variance of the dependent variable in the Shahrak-e- Daneshgah of Yazd. Based on the calculated regression coefficients, eight research variables have a direct and significant connection with the dependent variable and only the variable of personal characteristics with beta of )0.031(and a significance level of )0.271(has no significant connection with the dependent variable of the research. This means that indicators such as age, occupation, marital status, education, etc. do not have a significant connection with place attachment, and in other words, decreasing or increasing age and education or job changes do not have a considerable effect on people's attachment to their neighborhood. The results indicate that the residential characteristics variable with a beta of )0.463(has the highest significant relationship with the dependent variable and the semantic variable has the least significant relationship with the dependent variable by two items (index) called historical background and the existence of brilliant elements with a beta coefficient of (0.305).
 
As mentioned formerly, neighborhoods are considered as one of the main habitats in cities and play an important role in the physical and functional structure of each city. Conforming the importance of this role, attention to spatial qualities is vital to maintain the dynamism and continuity of flow and residence. With these explanations, finally, the results of this study express that the duration of living in neighborhoods are effective on shaping the sense of attachment to the residential environment, so that the more presence precedent in the neighborhood and personal ownership of housing, the less movement happen and the sense of responsibility of people toward environment will crystallize and as a result, their sense of attachment to the neighborhood will increase. Collective factors such as collective feeling, social interactions and presence are the next steps that confirm the collective nature of events at the neighborhood level and as this study showed, in urban contemporary contexts, there is a significant reduction in the incidence of group events. On the other hand, in the Shahrak-e- Daneshgah neighborhood, we see the low impact of individual variables such as personal feelings and characteristics on creating and promoting attachment to the neighborhood, to the extent that unlike many previous studies on residential scale, in this research personal characteristics are ineffective on shaping residents' attachment to their neighborhood. This indicates that the Shahrak-e-Daneshgah neighborhood, as a new residential neighborhood without antiquity and historical roots, lacks a collective spirit and suffers from the lack of social interactions and the presence of people in the neighborhood and needs to pay attention to factors that they lead to a collective spirit in the neighborhood.