Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Maryam azadbakht ¹
• Mojtaba Jahanifar ²

¹ urban planning, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

² Shahid chamran university of Ahvaz Ahvaz Iran

Abstract

The alienation feeling is a kind of mental state arising from the city in which the citizens feel a sense of separation and lack of belonging towards themselves and the city social, physical, cultural and historical environments. Urban spaces make citizens feel alienated. This research was done with the aim of presenting a conceptual model to explain the causal, background and intervention conditions that affect the urban space alienation feeling. In this mixed method research in the qualitative stage, interviews were conducted with 32 Ahvaz citizens until theoretical saturation, and by the theme analyze, a conceptual model was presented to explain and how the conditions affect the alienation feeling. In the quantitative stage, with the structural equation modeling, the alienation feeling causal structure was investigated for 310 Ahvaz citizens who were randomly selected in a stratified manner. Qualitative findings showed that city space ineffectiveness, insecurity, lack of city vibrancy, poor quality of city structures, city inaccessibility and unviability are the most important causes of the alienation feeling. The gender, family, ethnicity and culture of the people are also the background conditions. Inaccessibility has the greatest effect with a causal path coefficient of 0.65, followed by urban space insecurity with a coefficient of 0.60. The unviability of the city with a causal path coefficient of 0.51 had the least impact on the feeling of alienation in the urban space of Ahvaz. The feeling of alienation in urban spaces is strongly affected by interventions such as policy and legislation, urban designs, and gender segregation. The optimal and intelligent design of cities, taking into account individual and gender differences, ethnic and cultural symbols, and of course the security and accessibility of the city, provides the possibility that citizens feel less alienated from the urban space and their residence place.

Keywords

• feeling
• alienation
• Urban space
• structural equations
• Ahvaz

Main Subjects

• Urban Planning