Promoting Social Interaction in Urban Public Spaces: A Proposed Classification of Indicating Factors

Understanding social interactions plays an integral role in designing open public spaces in urban areas. The social exchanges made in open spaces provide valuable insights into society. Social interaction contributes to social cohesion since it augments strong community bonds. Therefore, open public areas should promote social interaction as it is pivotal in fostering social sustainability and cohesion. Accordingly, urban designers and planners must put several factors in place to underpin the open spaces’ ability to optimize social interaction. In this paper, we are focusing on determining the most significant factors to enhance social interaction in urban public open spaces gathered based on the analysis conducted by pioneers in the field and previously conducted studies. Through the exploration of 30 different resources, this paper has identified 15 significant factors of social interaction in urban public spaces. It has shown that the development of public spaces that promotes social interaction is a vital concept in urban design and planning.