Is Tehran's Public Spaces Disability Friendly?

Abstract

Public space act like a living spaces of the cities where people gather to socialize, communicate with each other and where urban activities being carried out. It defined the character of the city and play important role to connect people to the city. Comfortable and accessible public spaces lead to vitality and livability to the city. Lack of the maintenance and attention to public spaces could reduce the comfort level and livability to the city. United Nations Convention emphasized that the people with disability have the same rights to access the public spaces, where World Health Organization declare that about 10% of world population are disabled. The eight years war between Iran and Iraq had increased disability rate among the citizens. Tehran as capital of Iran and the most populous city in Iran need to improve facilities and accessibility in order to support the need of the people with disability to live actively in the society. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the need of urban public space for people with disability in Tehran. Among the identified obstacles for people with disability in Tehran are related to lack of application of Universal Design (UD) elements on the urban spaces and public facilities. This study is based on applied theory and quantitative method for evaluating satisfaction of people with disability. This research focused on two type of disability group, visual impairment and wheelchair users. One of the city district in Tehran is chosen as a case study. The findings of this study obtain will be analyses to provide UD solutions in urban public spaces for them.