An exploration of streets as social spaces as informative for urban planning and design
Journal Title: Challenges of Modern Technology - Year 2016, Vol 7, Issue 4
Abstract
Public open spaces can positively contribute to people’s quality of life. With the world’s growing urban population, especially in developing countries, quality public spaces are becoming increasingly important. Streets are considered important public spaces for people-environment interactions. Streets play an important social role in communities’ lives and can contribute to a sense of community. Using people-environment interaction as theoretical framework, the study used a qualitative approach to explore social dynamics in a multi-modal street (Helen Joseph Street) in a South Africa metropolitan city (Pretoria). Aspects of ethnography was applied using observations and semi-structured interviews to generate data from 32 participants about social dynamics in the street. Themes that emerged from the content analysis of the data include: the multi-functional role of the street, serving an economic, cultural, social, political and functional role; the generation of vigorous social interaction with multi-levels of contact/interaction; the interrelated nature of the social and spatial/built environment; the role of the street space in facilitating social interaction and being supportive of the social environment. The findings illustrate the interrelatedness and complexity of people and their environment in Helen Joseph Street. It is suggested that streets have the potential to positively impact on people’s social lives. Streets can act as platforms for social interaction by becoming self-reinforced social spaces that attract people and in return change urban spaces into vibrant public spaces.
Authors and Affiliations
Susan Human, Karen Puren
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP263719
- DOI 10.5604/01.3001.0010.8785
- Views 100
- Downloads 0
Potential applications of plant in vitro cultures in phytoremediation studies
The main aim of this review is to assess the advantages and disadvantages of use of in vitro plant cell and organ cultures as useful research tools in process of phytoremediation. Plant tissue cultures including cell sus...
Technological Interface of the City – The Promise of a Real Bottom-Up Urban Planning?
The paper shows how developing social networking services, geo-media applications, e-management tools, and even some particular types of web ‘games’ may contribute to the creation of technological interfaces of our citie...
Dynamic bubble tensiometry as a useful tool for assessment of physicochemical interactions of liposomal drug carriers with respiratory tract
This article presents an experimental investigation of physicochemical interactions of novel liposomal drug carriers intended for inhalation with model lung surfactant system. The research was done with the use of maximu...
Tempo 30 – Noise Reduction and Synergy Effects
This article describes a noise reduction method applied in the German-speaking realm in Europe, the so-called Tempo 30 (T30) restriction that limits vehicular speed to 30 km per hour, and differentiates between T30 arran...
Artykuł
Abstrakt