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Previously, neighborhood units were considered as the first identity unit of cities and the most important base of citizen’s social relationships, however recently they have been lost in the shadow of new urban developments. Nowadays, the quantity of citizen’s relationships has been increased but it happened at the cost of quality reduction in social relationships alongside replacement with virtual relationships. It seems that the identity and cultural structure of urban society are being threatened by new urbanism development and loss of their original functions in Iran. This is the result of shrinkage in the function of neighborhood centers and interior public spaces in the neighborhood units. On the other hand, green spaces and valuable natural countryside of cities are destroyed because of population increasing, industrial development and undefined urban expansion. Not only reduction in appropriate urban green spaces has suppressed their effects on urban pollutions but also limited the recreational and social open spaces in the cities. Design and construction of neighborhood parks as a part of urban green spaces, are among the most important issues in the design and planning of contemporary urbanism. In the developing countries such as Iran, establishment of new neighborhood parks is part of the Improvement of minimum necessary urban green spaces, but the effect of such green spaces on the type and quality of citizens’ relationships has not been deeply noticed. Noticing the” neighborhood unit” as an informant unit of city is basically one of the fundamental strategies for solving this problem. Revitalization of old neighborhood unit centers in the form of new neighborhood parks and using the potential of neighborhood green spaces could develop social relationship in the neighborhood units. This research aims to answer two questions: 1) What is the function of neighborhood parks in the social relationship quality of neighborhood communities; and 2) How the neighborhood parks can be used for development of neighborhood social relationships. Two successful samples from the developed countries and one successful sample from Iran were selected for analytical –descriptive analysis of the subject. Besides analyzing the operation quality of these parks in urban spaces, different impacts of such green spaces on neighborhood social relationships were studied. The results showed that, for increasing of neighborhood social relationships, the appropriate conditions for increasing the presence time of people in the parks must be provided at first. Some of these conditions such as easy accessibility, attractiveness, etc have impact on peoples’ attraction to the parks, and some others such as physiological comfort, sense of security, natural scenes, etc have impact on people’s presence time in the park. Suitable tactics for increasing interaction between people were stabilized; such as park furniture arrangement types, multiple and social activities and, good aggregation points. Based on the results of this study, appropriate strategies for the design of  neighborhood parks were developed.

Keywords: Neighborhood parks, Social Relationship, urban green spaces

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