Social Impacts Assessment of Walkways on Citizens in Urban Old Textures (Case Study: South Khayyam Walkway of Urmiye City)

Introduction In recent decades, many cities around the world have endeavored to improve life conditions of their central textures. One of the most effective approaches to this field is creativity of walkways. It is important to conduct development projects for different dimensions of urban walkways. Therefore, social-cultural and economic impacts of walkway will help urban planners and managers provide rational and accurate implementation of these projects. As a result, to the main challenges of contemporary cities are low vitality, reduction of positive social interactions, heavy traffic of vehicle in the streets, unique environment for citizens, safely, and comfort to the citizens. In this paper, the south Khayyam walkway in Urmia city has the potential in terms of social, historical and cultural values to provide a good place for implementation of development projects to analyze Social Impacts Assessment (SIA). Thus, fundamental issue of this research is the indexes affecting citizens in south Khayyam walkway according to SIA and relationship between main indicators and variables of research based on SIA.    Methodology    This is an applied research with post-implementation evaluation and analytical methods. In this research, documentary and survey methods have been used to collect the data. In order to assess the research validity, we designed questions based on the indicators and distributed the questionnaires among the experts familiar with the research concepts. They were asked to evaluate accuracy of indicators in questions. In the second step,  the alpha coefficient of 0.845 was estimated using the SPSS. Therefore, given that the calculated Cronbach's alpha is more than 0.7, it can be said that questionnaire have the acceptable reliability. Sample size was determined using G Power software, consideration non-reversibility, due to uncertainty of the number of visitors to walkway and we collected 300 samples using random sampling method. Data analysis was performed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in LISREL software. Results and discussion Standardized Modeling of Structural Equation Modeling at Liserl shows that each of the walkway indicators and social impact assessments has positive and direct effects. We determined the positive effects of the indices including social interaction (1.12), vitality (0.97), safety and security (0.94), social participation (0.84), social justice (0.82), citizenship identity (0.79), and social capital (0.66) as the effective indicators on the southeastern Khayyam pedestian, Urmia. The index of social interactions with a positive effect of 1.21 has the highest impact on the social sustainability of the walkway in the old and central urban textures in Urmia city.. In other words, it has more probable consequences for walkway sustainability. The results show that among vitality indicators, variable of mixing and variety of users has direct (0.49) and indirect (0.4773) coefficients. Among the components of safety component, social control variable have also direct and indirect coefficients of 0.51 and 0.47, respectively.. Among the variables of the identity of citizenship, the variable of age and historical significance the direct () and indirect coefficients are 0.66 and 0.51, respectively. Among the indicators of social capital index, the constructive confidence variable between citizens and local authorities has direct coefficient of 0.77 and indirect coefficient of 0.58. These are taken as the indicators that have greater direct impact on social aspects of walkway in the old and historical districts of Urmia.  Conclusion The direct and indirect effects of the indicators and variables demonstrate that the social justice, social capital, safety and security indexes in South Khayyam walkway are faced with numerous constrains and obstacles. Some of the indicators such as social interaction, citizenship identity and citizen participation have a relatively good status. In addition, the social impacts of Khayyam walkway have been positive in terms of participation and promotion of social coherence, but it is poor in appropriate cultural infrastructure, safety and justice-oriented approach. Indeed, the effects of above mentioned walkway have not been enough to solve many social problems that have brought city growth into its old texture.