An investigation into vandalism and its effects on urban beauty

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Vandalism or intentional destruction of public property and belongings is one of the social hazards that always leads to huge jeopardy and damage to municipal facades, furniture, municipal spaces and distorts the beauty of the city. In this regard, the present study investigated vandalism and its impacts on urban beauty in the city of Chenaran.METHODS: The research methodology applied in this study was mixed (qualitative-quantitative). At the outset, the qualitative section was conducted in a semi-structured interview with 16 people who were graduates of geography, urban planning and sociology in 4 focus groups of 4 people. Following that, by applying the information of this section, the main examples and cases of vandalism (destructive vandalism and written vandalism), various types of vandalism (recreational, property, ideological and vindictive vandalism), the effects of urban beauty vandalism (destruction of facades, destruction of furniture and destruction of urban spaces) as well as factors affecting vandalism (individual and social) were identified. Analyzes were performed in NVIVO 7 software. Then, by using the findings of the qualitative section and theoretical studies, a questionnaire (Based on the Likert scale) was prepared and distributed among the sample size of the quantitative section (382 citizens of Chenaran). Questionnaire analysis was performed with Pearson correlation coefficient and regression analysis model in SPSS software.FINDINGS: The findings demonstrated that factors like socio-economic status, degree of socialization, feelings of injustice and discrimination, association with vandals and individual factors are influential in vandalism. The results of regression analysis also illustrated that 63% of the alterations in vandalism are as a result of the relationship between a linear combination of independent variables and the remaining 37% or "Coefficient of Non-Determination" is as a consequence of other factors which were not considered in this study. Feelings of injustice and discrimination (0.168) and association and communication (0.161) have a direct impact, but the socio-economic status (-0.166), the degree of socialization (-0.154) and individual factors (-0.145) have the opposite effect.CONCLUSION: Vandalism affects the beauty of the city in several ways, including feelings of abuse and discrimination with a value of 0.168 and then meetings and communication with a value of 0.161 in which factors such as alteration of people's notions, reconstruction and fixing damaged equipment and the participation of citizens are crucial.

Keywords

• façade
• space
• urban beauty
• urban furniture
• vandalism