WOMEN’S AFFECTIVE EXPERIENCES IN EVERYDAY USE OF URBAN PUBLIC OPEN SPACES IN YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA
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Abstract
Public Open Spaces (POS) shape urban experience; however, their evaluation has largely focused on physical qualities and safety, leaving experiential and affective aspects underexplored. This study examines how multiple perceptual dimensions of POS relate to women’s positive affective experiences in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, moving beyond a predominantly risk-oriented perspective. A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted with 131 women across four urban POS representing contrasting contexts: a formal civic square, a neighborhood-scale park, a multifunctional recreational space, and a campus-attached park. The survey measured five perceptual dimensions of POS, which are: safety, comfort, accessibility, freedom, and surveillance, as potential predictors of affective experience. Affective experience was measured separately through respondents’ reported feelings of relaxation, ease, enjoyment, and mood enhancement. Composite indicators were created after conducting reliability analysis, followed by the analysis of inter-variable relations via Spearman correlation and OLS regression models. The analysis showed that positive effects are positively and significantly correlated with perceptions of freedom, access, and comfort while weakly related to safety and surveillance dimensions of POS. Although safety-related aspects contribute to the establishment of favorable baseline conditions for a positive experience, they have not been proven to predict affect when considering other variables. Moreover, women’s perceptions of freedom, accessibility, and ease of use were shown to be stronger predictors of positive affective experience than safety and surveillance. Thus, the perception of POS by women does not rely on mitigating risks as much as on the ability to use it comfortably and freely.
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