Practical Strategies and Smart City Solutions to Promote Women's Security in Public Areas (Case Study: Tehran District 16)

Having sense of security in urban public areas is a concept that is considered as one of the highest values in the value hierarchy by citizens. This issue would be more critical in the poor areas, and therefore the role of urban design and the application of urban smart solutions for reducing problems would be more important and necessary in the mentioned areas. District 16 of Tehran is one of these critical areas. In this research, the philosophical paradigm is interpretivism and therefore the research approach is qualitative. This study is based on the cross-sectional survey research method. Data collection was done through direct observation of researchers and interviews made posing open-ended questions. Based on the descriptive analysis method, to clarify the type of strategies, the collected data were scored according to the AHP method. According to the results, from among the environmental factors, pollution of sidewalks and pedestrians is the most important factor that effects on women. The second most important factor is the abandoned empty lands in the era; the most serious problem with such places is the gatherings of addicts over there. Emptiness of the urban spaces and lack of suitable furniture have prevented women from using the spaces, and this has led to the genderization of the spaces. Inadequate lighting is another challenging issue in those areas. From among the functional factors, lack of public transportation during the night can be named as an important lack; Accordingly 11 strategies is proposed for smart city management , so as to reduce some of the challenges and to improve sense of security among women in these areas.