Spatial Measurement of Women's Feeling of Alienation in the Urban Spaces of Ahvaz

Extended Abstract

Introduction

Alienation is the human separation from his spiritual and material world and the inability to change the existing reality. Alienation means the lack of connection between the built environment and physical components with humans as a social being. One of the dimensions of alienation is human alienation from urban space. To prevent the city's deterioration and ensure a better regeneration of urban spaces, the urban space planning process must include citizens' experiences, opinions, needs, and individual differences. Despite the fact that momentary mental well-being (i.e., emotional state) is affected by citizens' feelings towards the city space (e.g., feeling of security), decision-making processes for city design affect both of them. There is still limited knowledge about the feeling and excitement of urban spaces, especially the feeling of alienation in urban spaces for women; in addition to explaining the different dimensions of the feeling of alienation in urban spaces, this research aims to evaluate the Ahvaz urban areas based on the feeling of alienation level among women.





Methodology

This applied research, in addition to explaining the different dimensions of alienation feeling in urban spaces, will evaluate the Ahvaz urban areas based on the women's feelings of alienation level. The research used a mixed method (exploratory-sequential). In the qualitative phase, alienation in urban spaces was explained using the grounded theory approach. In the quantitative phase, with structural equation modeling, the model's performance was compared between women and men, as explained in the qualitative phase. Also, in the last stage, different Ahvaz areas were assessed based on indicators. In order to explain the feeling of alienation in the urban space, 25 citizens living in Ahvaz were invited to an interview. These citizens, 14 of whom were women and 11 of whom were men, had been living in Ahvaz for more than 10 years and were purposefully selected to express their lived experience, work, recreation, and participation in urban affairs. The researchers used stratified random sampling for the quantitative part. The Ahvaz metropolitan has seven municipal districts. To confirm the structural model, the researchers selected 880 men and women living in Ahvaz and asked them to answer self-reported questionnaires electronically or on Pencil and paper.



Results and discussion

The semi-structured interview with each citizen of Ahvaz lasted an average of 57 minutes, and 25 citizens participating in the research were interviewed in depth for 1645 minutes. Citizens' voices were recorded and converted into text after obtaining their permission. With the analysis matrix and data classification, we conceptualized and abstracted five important structures that help explain the feeling of alienation. These concepts include the feeling of city space ineffectiveness, insecurity in the city space, lack of identity in the city space, lack of vitality in the city space, and the feeling of not belonging to the city space. Alienation from the city space is a feeling that the interviewees associated with the city's inefficiency, insecurity, lack of identity, and lack of liveliness. The alienation in urban spaces means the separation of citizens from places, spaces, passages, and the physical body of the city, which will result in the feeling of ineffectiveness of the space, the feeling of the Anonymity of the space, and not being attached to the place, and not having the feeling of vitality in the urban spaces. The researchers found that the closest feeling of citizens to alienation is the feeling of not belonging to the city space. Cornell's density maps showed that Ahvaz areas associated with a decrease in vitality for women, insecurity for women, inefficiency, and lack of identity are among the hottest centers for intensifying alienation feeling. The intensification of alienation in Ahvaz's different urban areas led to the gendering of the space, and women are the victims of this feeling, so it has reduced their social participation and attachment to the city.



Conclusion

The important consequence of vandalism is the intensification of the alienation in the city, and citizens who feel physically and mentally distant from the city and do not have an identity for the city or do not define their identity concerning the city may start destroying property and City facilities. These consequences will reduce people's right to the city and further reduce the quality of urban life. The gender discrimination that exists in urban spaces causes the feeling of alienation in the Ahvaz urban space to intensify, which itself causes the decrease in the presence of women in urban spaces. It is suggested that, in the design of urban spaces, in order to prevent social isolation, which is one of the important consequences of the feeling of alienation in the urban space, more attention should be paid to important components such as urban vitality, urban livability, and city security. In this regard, aesthetic and location-oriented lighting, reducing stray and abandoned spaces in the city, controlling more urban areas that are crime-prone and unsafe, and increasing citizens' access to urban services in close proximity to their homes will increase the sense of security. It will become a city, which leads to a decrease in the feeling of alienation. Creating entertainment and recreation spaces in a decentralized and neighborhood way, using green space to increase the sense of vitality, and paying attention to the city design in terms of the beauty of the place and cultural and ethnic elements can both increase the vitality of the city and make it better livable.