Place Identity

In this article, I clarify the phenomenological concept of lifeworld by drawing on the geographical themes of place, place experience, and place meaning. Most simply, lifeworld refers to a person or group’s day-to-day, taken-for-granted experience that typically goes unnoticed. One aim of phenomenological research is to examine the lifeworld as a means to identify and clarify the tacit, unnoticed aspects of human life so that they can be accounted for theoretically and practically. Here, I discuss some key phenomenological principles and then draw on phenomenological renditions of place as one means to clarify some of the lifeworld’s social, environmental, spatial, and geographical aspects. To concretize my discussion, I draw descriptive evidence from British writer Penelope Lively’s Spiderweb, a 1990s novel describing one outsider’s efforts to come to inhabit a place—a fictitious present-day village in the southwestern British county of Somerset.

Problem statement: Regenerating old and central sections of cities to preserve biological values and respond to users’ needs is essential. With the advent of the second wave of urban development in developing countries, part of urban fabrics affected by modernist interventions has changed and metamorphosed to the point that they have lost their meaning and function, consequently leading to the degradation of biological values and weakening of the identity of the place. With this continuing trend and the lack of attention to the background, these neighborhoods are being transformed into places devoid of meaning and identity fathomable by citizens.

Research objective: This study aims to extract the quality components of urban streets systematically by formulating the process of regenerating urban streets with a focus on promoting identity and analyzing Chaharbagh Street to propose complementary interventions to further promote its identity.

Research method: This study used a mixed approach using the descriptive-analytical method. Triangulation was used to strengthen the research and increase the validity of the findings. The focus group method and a public questionnaire were used to collect the data. The data from the focus group were analyzed using coding, and the data from the questionnaire were analyzed using the Friedman method and Pearson correlation coefficient in SPSS.

Conclusion: The theoretical results revealed essential components of urban streets: access, spatial continuity, safety, and security, inclusiveness, and social mixing, quality of the public space, enclosure and transparency, diversity, mixed land uses, and supporting stakeholders. Modifying accessibility and adjusting the size of urban blocks and mixed land uses, designing urban furniture, and strengthening citizens’ perceptions of space (by increasing legibility, the proportion of new forms, and spatial unity) can improve the identity of Chaharbagh Street in Herat.

Research objective:The present research tries to extract the components of urban street environment quality through a methodical study so that in addition to recognizing and analyzing Chaharbagh Street, it can provide suggestions for directing physical interventions with the aim of promoting identity.
Research Method:This research has been done with a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach and using a descriptive-analytical method. In order to strengthen the research and further validate of the findings, Triangulation Sampling was used.Center group method and popular questionnaire were used to collect data. Data analysis from the center group was performed using coding analysis method and data obtained from the questionnaire was performed using Friedman method, Pearson correlation coefficient and SPSS.
Conclusion:The results indicate that basically the most important components of urban streets for researchers are access,spatial continuity, safety, security,inclusion, social mixing, quality of public space, confinement, transparency, diversity, mixing of land uses. and supporting stakeholders,improving access and adjusting the size of urban blocks, strengthening citizens' perception of space (by increasing readability fit of new forms and spatial unity),diversityو mixing of land use and design of urban furniture are some of the measures that promote identity.