The influence of social interactions on the behavioral patterns of the people in urban spaces (case study: The pedestrian zone of Rasht Municipality Square, Iran)

This study attempted to investigate the influence of social interactions on behavioral patterns of the people in urban spaces. Accordingly, a combination of empirical axial line and visibility graph analysis was implemented using the Space Syntax technique and empirical observation of pedestrian activities in the course of static and dynamic was applied. In order to determine the behavioral patterns of the people, four types of observation techniques on pedestrians has been adopted, which are named, gate counts, static snapshots, movement traces and people following. Observations were considered at a specific time between 6 and 8 pm, which is considered as a relatively overcrowded hour in that specific pedestrian zone. It should be noted that the ArcGIS software has also been used in order to evaluate the consistency of the findings. The results of this study show that social interactions have a profound impact on the way that people behave in urban spaces; so that, this behavioral impact which is derived from the quality of the built environment, is transferred to the people and affects the way they behave in their own personal lives. This research contributes to architects, urban designers, environmental psychologists, policy makers and tourism managers by demonstrating the effective factors of sociable urban spaces in order to promote the level of quality in public spaces.