Spatiality of Outdoor Social Activities in Neighborhood Urban Spaces: An Empirical Investigation in Erbil City Neighborhoods

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The physical characteristics of urban spaces play a role in outdoor social interactions, which are considered crucial for promoting social sustainability; however, the spatiality of social outdoor activities in neighborhood urban spaces is less investigated. To address this gap, four neighborhoods of varying urban tissue patterns in Erbil City were selected for detailed investigation. The social context of outdoor social activities as a framework consisting of three components—physical form features, uses (activities), and users—was suggested for assessing the socio-spatial characteristics of outdoor social activities. Data were collected through direct observation. ArcGIS Pro’s visualization tools, the Kernel density geoprocessing tool, and SPSS v27 were used to map the spatial distributions of outdoor activities, and their centers of formation across urban spaces illustrated in topographic density maps. A total of 3565 outdoor activities conducted by 7134 users were recorded. The findings indicate significant differences in the density and intensity of activity types, gender associations with urban form characteristics, strong relationships between land use and outdoor social activities, and concentrations of activity centers in areas of mixed land use. The study also reveals the absence of elderly individuals, high populations of children in older cases/areas, significant associations with gender, an even distribution of females and males in traditional organic urban tissue, and the presence of females in spaces with lower connectivity and greater privacy. This study provides valuable insights into urban planning, focusing on the spatiality of outdoor social activities, integrating intersubjective and objective spatiality, and understanding the built environment’s influence on urban life by revealing socially desired urban form characteristics.