Urban Planning
Mohammad Reza Haghi; ehsan heidarzadeh
Abstract
Highlights
- The development of the Internet and electronic services contributes to the sustainability and resilience of cities against epidemics.
- Provision of neighborhood-scale land uses, especially green spaces and sports, is the first priority in the city of Kermanshah, Iran in the face of epidemics.
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Highlights
- The development of the Internet and electronic services contributes to the sustainability and resilience of cities against epidemics.
- Provision of neighborhood-scale land uses, especially green spaces and sports, is the first priority in the city of Kermanshah, Iran in the face of epidemics.
- The approaches of integrated urban management, digital cities, orientation toward the neighborhood, and social capital have a key role in promotion of resilience in Kermanshah.
Introduction
The worldwide outbreak of Covid-19 since the end of 2019 can be considered as one of the biggest challenges in recent decades, which has caused the issue of epidemic diseases to assume a prominent position in the atlas of natural and artificial hazards. The high rate of spread, high mortality rates, and severe damage to various economic and social sectors of societies indicates the importance of considering this key issue. According to the World Health Organization, the coronavirus epidemic is a global crisis that is unique in contemporary history in terms of spatial extent, onset rate, and complexity. Therefore, the present study has sought to answer the following question: which urban resilience variables are associated with higher priority in the struggle against epidemic diseases in the city of Kermanshah, Iran?
Theoretical Framework
A community’s resilience to potential contingencies is determined by the degree to which it can access the required resources and its capability of organizing itself both in advance and when needed. Accordingly, a resilient community is one that functions prudently in reduction of risk, preparation for the various effects of risk, and acceleration of recovery from hazardous events.
Following the outbreak of Covid-19, it became clear that urban resilience extends beyond climate, landscape, ecology, and natural disasters. To raise the capability of an urban environment, therefore, such shocks need to be absorbed without significant changes in its structure or function. Hence, urban planners must seek to answer such questions as why urban planning has been inactive in control of the coronavirus epidemic crisis, and whether the concentration and distribution of population and activity has made city dwellers more vulnerable to diseases, terrorist attacks, and artificial and natural disasters. The answers to these questions are essential because there is ample evidence about the influence of urban form and design on the prevalence of epidemics.
Methodology
The present applied research involved interpretive description. The required information was collected in two ways: through library studies and questionnaires. For collection of data and identification of the initial variables through a review of various study sources, nineteen variables were finally selected for evaluation. After the variables were compiled, the studied sample was analyzed by the elite.
Since the Micmac software was used to analyze the data, the questionnaire involved a matrix of cross-adjustment effects, and was validated by experts. The data input to Micmac were obtained using the Delphi method and a questionnaire distributed among fifteen experts familiar with the conditions in Kermanshah (ten people with doctorate degrees and five with master’s degrees). In order to increase the validity of the data, prerequisites were considered such as explanation of the conceptual model based on the latest scientific research, the experts’ acquaintance with the case study, reception of the experts’ feedback about the final results, and independency of the experts.
Results and Discussion
The present study analyzed the influence of urban resilience against epidemics on the basis of nineteen variables. The findings demonstrated that the following variables had the greatest direct and indirect impacts on the other variables involved in resilience in Kermanshah in the face of Covid-19: the infrastructure for remote provision of professional, administrative, academic, and medical services, access to green and open spaces and recreation-and-sports land uses, access to services and neighborhood scale uses, capacity of urban facilities and equipment such as the electricity network and Internet, and unified, integrated management in crisis conditions. Moreover, the two variables capacity of neighborhoods for walking and cycling and enhancement of local communities’ public participation and social capital exhibited a two-dimensional nature in the issue of resilience in Kermanshah. This means that these variables are affected by others while greatly influencing them.
Conclusion
Based on the factors identified as drivers, suggestions should be made for their promotion. Therefore, four macro approaches were mentioned as priority plans through adaption of the driving factors to what had been proposed in previous studies, including integrated urban management, the digital city, orientation toward the neighborhood, and social capital. In fact, one can implicitly achieve urban resilience against epidemic diseases by placing such approaches at the forefront of the urban planning system.
The four proposed approaches are important because the synergy of measures taken in the public and private sectors is expected to improve and prevent waste of time and financial and human resources, aided by integrated urban management. Enhancement of the role of the digital city is important not only for provision of tools for identification and control of carriers of disease but also for better reduction of physical contact through telecommuting capacity, e-learning, online shopping, etc. Orientation toward the neighborhood is also considered significant as it reduces long inter-neighborhood commute by meeting citizens’ daily and weekly needs on a neighborhood scale. In addition, if urban neighborhoods are properly designed, achievements such as pedestrianization and access to green and open spaces will be realized, which will play a key role in residents’ mental and physical health during quarantine. The impact of social capital is also important because epidemics can be managed only through the people’s empathy and collective will. In fact, as the disease spreads among the people, their support and participation can undeniably help to control it.
Urban Planning
A M; zeinab shahrokhy; hossein tahmasebi moghadam
Abstract
Introduction Housing, as the environment in which the family has formed and developed, plays an important role in many aspects of human life. However, millions of people live in cities without the security of enjoying the proper ownership of housing and related services. With ...
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Introduction Housing, as the environment in which the family has formed and developed, plays an important role in many aspects of human life. However, millions of people live in cities without the security of enjoying the proper ownership of housing and related services. With regard to this, governments should increase their efforts to promote, preserve and ensure the full realization of the right to adequate housing for those social strata. In this way, as the first measure expected of the governments, housing is provided for a decent life of the citizens. Depending on their views, governments apply policies and interventions. The problem of housing in Iran, as in most other societies in the world, is of particular importance. The government was obliged to meet this requirement in the form of a five-year development program. However, housing policies, as tools for proper development in accordance with Islamic principles, have not been able to meet the housing needs. Therefore, considering the housing problems in the city of Kermanshah and the continuation of these problems, this research is carried out to identify the factors affecting housing policies in the city and to present the necessary strategies in this area. Results Based on the strategic plan of housing policies in Kermanshah, the existence of a series of macroeconomic factors hinders the full realization of housing programs and policies. The contradictions, discrepancies and heterogeneity in the physical structure of the city were considered as the biggest obstacle on the macro level, which needs serious attention. It is necessary to pay attention to external macro factors such as managers’ ‘taste’ in looking at housing policies, lack of public sector facilities, housing market downturn due to lack of investment by the private sector with moderate importance, lack of adequate oversight on the implementation of national building regulations in designing and implementation of all urban and urban development projects, feeling of insecurity for public and private investments with little significance, inadequacy of government’s housing policy for the entire social strata of the community, non-establishment of factories in the industrial and agricultural sectors, and expensive materials and building materials. On the other hand, there is a range of effective factors on housing policies in Kermanshah. Using these factors, one can deal with some of these problems. Considering these factors, offering housing loans in accordance with the up-to-date requirements has the highest strategic appropriateness. Therefore, one should pay particular attention to these factors. Conclusion Regarding the plans and policies implemented in Kermanshah, as one of the metropolitan cities of Iran, there has been some difficulty in furthering development goals despite the improvement in the quality of residential units. The root of these problems is mainly in the regulation of residential development policies with a purely economic viewpoint without regard to target groups. Therefore, one has to find suitable strategies and solutions in order to resolve the housing problems of this city. Therefore, in this research, after understanding the city’s problems and the opinions of experts in the field of housing, with the consensus of the experts, it was concluded that the most influential programs were the housing mass production policy and Mehr housing plan. Despite all the quantitative measures, the city of Kermanshah needs about 20,000 houses for its citizens in the 2010s. Providing housing facilities for different income groups, encouraging the private sector to build and provide housing through industrial practices, education and culture, enforcing national building regulations and optimal monitoring of these regulations are the most important strategies for this research.
