Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی
Authors
1 University of Zabol
2 Zabol University
Abstract
Extended Abstract
1. INTRODUCTION
Children, owing to their special mental and physical conditions, are very different from other groups of citizens and have their own special needs. Cities of today have been designed for adults, making them both unattractive and sometimes dangerous for the children. Childhood provides the best ground for the education and personality sublimation, desire for social life and cooperation people. The consistency between urban space and the attitude of different groups of people as the final users of such spaces is highly important. In this regard, the main elements of the city like lands use, traffic and urban furniture are considered as the most important factors in evaluating the level of suitability and desirability of spaces. Creation of urban environments that is supportive of children requires extensive study and investigation of a variety of subjects. The idea of Child Friendly City (CFC) is mainly rooted in the views of experts like Clarence Stein and the theory of Clarence Perry’s Neighborhood Unit. Here, the main subjects, which are critical in the creation and maintenance of CFC, are security, green space, availability and organization. The benefits of CFC range from promoting healthier life styles and the quality of social interactions to stable and long term development of natural spaces.
2. METHODOLOGY
The purpose of the present paper is to study and evaluate various urban usages with regard to the children's requirements and in line with CFC model in an attempt to identify the most important barriers to the implementation of CFC Plans in city of Quchan. This is an applied research that uses library research, document analysis, field observations, interview and questionnaire for data collection. The analysis of the data has been done with the aid of SPSS Software. Furthermore, to study the level of urban suitability for children in Quchan, three districts of Yaghoob Abad, District 3 and Farhangian in District 2 were selected through clustering sampling in accordance with the population in these zones.
3. DISCUSSION
The results of the study reveal that the most important reason for inaccessibility of children to the design, benefits, and creation of urban spaces without paying attention to the physical conditions of children (46.66%), and inappropriateness of recreation centers for children in the city of (40.95%). The interviewees believed that the urban spaces had been built regardless of the physical conditions of children, which is the main reason preventing child from the benefits of various urban spaces. Moreover, from the viewpoint of some experts and officials, urban managers and authorities have inadequate understanding of these regulations (52.5%) and suffer from low professional forces in specialized and administrative position (47.5%), which is the main barrier to enforcing CFC designs.
4. CONCLUSION
Appropriate and effective urban land uses not only enhance the quality of urban environment but also have a positive influence on the children’s social maturity and personality development. Children as the residents of the society have particular rights that must be respected. One of these rights is designing appropriate urban space. The findings demonstrated that the study districts in Quchan had suitable and acceptable infrastructures, requiring executive mechanisms to make city a satisfactory and proper place for children. Also, there is the possibility of transforming these spaces into areas appropriate to the children. However, hampered by the above mentioned reasons, these plans have not been implemented yet.
Keywords
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