Research on the Physical Characteristics for Improving the Security Perceptions of Citizens: A Comparative Analysis of Zones Five and Ten of Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

Crime and the insecurities relating to it within urban neighborhoods are currently amongst the major concerns of urban citizens, and such issues have resulted in significant harm to their social life, to the point that urban neighborhoods are even sometimes considered to be a subcategory of urban abnormality. Such a result has arisen largely due to a lack of security in cities. The qualitative and quantitative aspects associated with the sense of security are crucial to the positive existence of urban neighborhoods, both from physical and social perspectives. A particularly important issue to consider is the safety of women and girls and the elderly in urban areas, especially at night. The goal of this study is to evaluate the role that the physical characteristics of an area playing in improving the security perceptions of urban citizens within that area. The approach of the study, given its descriptive-analytic nature, might be applied to all kinds of applied research. The study’s data collection is of two forms: library documents and survey-based questionnaires. In this research, a questionnaire was developed and distributed among residents of Zones Five and Ten of Shiraz, Iran. After collecting the required data, SPSS is used for the study’s analysis. The study adopts a simple random sampling method, with the statistical population of the study areas being 281,341. In turn, the sample size used via application of the Cochran formula is 384. The results of the T-test and the F-test are used to analyze the differences between the independent and dependent variables. The findings of the research reveal that the average security perception in Zone Ten is 41.51, an amount higher than that in Zone Five, which is 37.41. The observed difference between the averages of the Zones Five and Ten confirms the hypotheses of the research. The analysis shows that such factors of physical characteristics, including parks, buildings, schools, street lighting and roads network patterns, influence the quantity of potential criminals and thus the security perceptions. In general, there is a significant difference among the physical characteristics of the study areas in terms of their security perceptions.