Analysis of the role of urban beautification in promoting the vitality of urban spaces in District 7 of Tehran Municipality

 A B S T R A C T
The indiscriminate constructions and residential and administrative constructions of the 7th district of Tehran municipality have caused the changes and developments of this area not to proceed in a logical and orderly manner; The results of such a process are many anomalies and visual disturbances that have occurred in the image and body of urban spaces; Therefore, the purpose of this research was to express the need to know the indicators of the beautification of the 7th district of Tehran and to identify the key factors affecting the state of urban vitality; which has used survey and descriptive-analytical research methods. The statistical population of this research is the 7th district of Tehran Municipality, where 200 people were selected as a sample by simple random sampling method. The reliability of research indicators was calculated through Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which was more than 70% for all research factors, and Bartlett's test was used to measure the validity of the research. The findings of the research showed that the first hypothesis of the research that the beautification of urban spaces is undesirable in the studied area has been confirmed and requires more effort from city managers. In other words, the findings obtained from the t-test showed; The significance level for all factors is P=0.000>0.05; Therefore, the first hypothesis is confirmed; The second hypothesis was the effect of the beautification factors of urban spaces on vitality in the study area, the findings showed that according to the critical ratio of each of the beautification factors affecting the vitality of urban spaces, which is above 1.5 and the value of the p statistic that is separate for each The factors of the beautification of roads and sidewalks, the structure and arrangement of buildings and urban furniture have been investigated, leading to urban vitality, and the mentioned hypothesis is also confirmed
Extended Abstract
Introduction
As the largest environment for human activities on the earth, cities present the various effects of beauty and vitality to their residents. Generally as the city and its environment become more beautiful, the peace, happiness and balance of its residents increase. This helps the problems in the cities become more endurable for the residents. The metropolis of Tehran has been studied in various aspects of urban research. In 2012, Tehran rank was low in the Economist's assessment of the Living Cities Index. The problems in Tehran, especially District 7th (as one of the central areas of the city) has increased along with it’s developing and increase in population. The rapid growth of population and buildings has caused the changes in Tehran result in irregular expansion. The spatial disturbances, irregularity, heavy traffic and olden texture can be seen in the physical structure result in the dissatisfaction of resident. Therefore, considering the role of beautifying the cities and needing to plan for the vitality of urban spaces encourage this research. This study utilizes the elements and indicators of urban beautification in district 7th of Tehran.
 
Methodology
We utilized a survey and descriptive-analytical analysis. Qualitative and quantitative data were used.  Also data and information are collected based on the library and field research. The statistical population was 200 people from District 7th of Tehran. This population was selected by a simple random sampling. We used a researcher-made questionnaire. In this regards, 26 and 33 items are used to measuring urban vitality and beautification based on the likert spectrum, respectively. The reliability of these indices was calculated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which was more than 70%. Bartlett’s test was used to assess the validity of the research which showing a significant level of 0.000 and confirming the validity of the research variables. The one-sample t-test and structural equation modeling was used for statistical analysis in SPSS and AMOS. The required data processed and analyzed using the appropriate tests based on the indicators and related weights.
 
Results and discussion
The results showed that the developed model and the experimental data can be emphasized for analyzing the fitness of the theoretical model of the research by nine indicators. Therefore, there is a good fitness between the structured model and the experimental data. With emphasizing the structural equations, a suitable model has been designed for analyzing the relationship between independent and dependent variables. The desired fitness shows the model of structural equations. Therefore, the model proposed by the researchers has a perfect fit. This can be confirmed by the Tucker-Lewis fit index, Adaptive Fit Index (CFI) and incremental fit index which were close to 0.9. The economical fit indices were also greater than 0.5. Finally, the economic ratio fitting index was equal to 0.9. The root mean square was less than 0.08 showing a good fitness of the research model. This study used many researches to clarify the factors influencing on the urban beautification. Our results are consistent with the Behzadfar et al. (2009) and Izadi  and Akrami (2016). They analyzed the characteristics of urban aesthetics and importance of beautification in urban spaces relying on the factors such as order, beauty, strength, security and well-being. Our results also are consistent with Khosto and Rezvani (2010) for urban vitality. The present research utilizes more indicators, items and main aesthetic factors which were restricted by previous studies.
Ebrahimi (2016) examined the situation of beauty in Bojnourd city. His results are consistent with the results in this study. He showed that some parts of the city are in an undesired situation regards to aesthetics needing to more attention of municipalities and urban beautification.
 
Conclusions
The first hypothesis (the beautification of urban spaces is undesirable in District 7) has been confirmed by t-test.  The significance level is P = 0.05 for all factors. This means that it’s needed more attention by city planners.  Average of all factors is less than 3 which means the beautification situation of Tehran is not very desirable. The second hypothesis (the effect of beautification of sidewalks; the structure and arrangement of buildings, urban furniture on the urban vitality in District 7^th of Tehran) is also confirmed. This hypothesis was examined by modeling the structural equations. It was statistically suggested that the factors with a regression weight greater than 0.40 are considered significant. Therefore, all regression weights in the studied model and indices lower than this value were removed before model analysis. All the considered factors have been confirmed and the fitness indicates a good fit of the measured model with the observation data. According to Table 7 and based on the critical ratio of each beautification factors affecting the vitality of urban environment, the factors of beautification of sidewalks, structure and arrangement of buildings and urban furniture lead to urban vitality.