Urban Management
Daryoush Ardalan; zohreh davoudpour; Keramatollah Ziari
Abstract
The high rates of financial and human loss in natural disasters (particularly in recent decades) have led various countries and organizations to seek effective theories in that regard. Since 2005 (the Hugo Summit), the issue of resilience has been pursued seriously, addressing the idea of empowering ...
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The high rates of financial and human loss in natural disasters (particularly in recent decades) have led various countries and organizations to seek effective theories in that regard. Since 2005 (the Hugo Summit), the issue of resilience has been pursued seriously, addressing the idea of empowering cities to perform better in the event of an accident. Iran is a country where a large number of natural disasters occur, and the city of Qazvin is at constant risk of severe earthquakes, as indicated by research, due to the crossing of dangerous pressure faults in its northern part. In Iran, particularly in Qazvin, urban management has delegated responsibility for addressing disasters to a "crisis management headquarters." Given that the structure of the headquarters in Qazvin is similar to those of similar entities in cities with unsuccessful backgrounds of performance in addressing earthquakes in recent years, the main issue in this regard is how to change the structure of the headquarters so that it can perform more favorably upon earthquakes. This descriptive-analytical research considered the proposed headquarters structures and models as described in the UN documentations and those of countries having addressed such events successfully. Moreover, the variables and indicators examined in investigation of institutional resilience were identified. Qazvin’s crisis management headquarters was regarded as a dependent variable influenced by a number of independent variables, and its success depended on the conditions of those variables. In the analysis of the findings, the required factors were first identified according to the conditions of Qazvin through assessment of the variables and indicators using CVR (the content validity ratio). A survey was conducted of 30 urban planning experts, in which a total of 9 variables and 9 indicators were selected to obtain institutional resilience. A questionnaire was then prepared in the format of the Likert scale, where the questions were based on the tasks specified by the law for the different working groups at the headquarters and categorized on that basis, with the variable and the target index for each question specified. After a survey of 110 urban planning experts, the data were analyzed using SPSS. Using a Student’s t-test, the variables were assessed with different indicators for the headquarters under investigation. The results indicated a lack of concern for the 9 effective variables. Furthermore, a comparison of the structure of the headquarters to the models in use around the world demonstrated that it consisted of only two parts, including operating and administrative forces, unlike the successful models, which are composed of four main parts. It was also found that the above two departments of course need organizational reform. Thus, the headquarters needed to consider three measures to achieve institutional resilience. Firstly, the structure needed to be reformed to address the existing drawbacks. Secondly, the attitudes toward management needed to be changed from government to governance. Thirdly, equipment with new hardware and software technologies was needed for preparedness and prevention. The required measures in the above three areas should be taken simultaneously to exhibit the necessary effectiveness.
Urban Design
Naser Barati; Seyyedeh Sepideh Najafi Taroujeni
Volume 5, Issue 19 , August 2016, , Pages 81-91
Abstract
The city is a set of signs and symptoms that manifest various contexts. Some of these indicators with regard to the continuation of participation in various generations, acceptance by people and exhibition of citizens’ identity and culture have changed into identity symbols. On the other hand, ...
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The city is a set of signs and symptoms that manifest various contexts. Some of these indicators with regard to the continuation of participation in various generations, acceptance by people and exhibition of citizens’ identity and culture have changed into identity symbols. On the other hand, the entrance of the city, due to the great impact on the imagination of city visitors in the first glance and in fact at the beginning of arrival is one of the most important sign placement and symbols in the structure of the city; therefore, made signs at the entrance tocities, with the passage of time, have changed to symbols that represent the integrity of the city and try to introduce it to the people. The symbol of the main eastern entrance of Qazvin city in Minudar square is an urban element recently completed. In this study, the quality of this element, as a significant urban symbol, is studied from the people’s point of view.
Based on the raised issues, the aim of this study is identifying design criteria of entrance symbols in general, as well as evaluating success of Qazvin’s monumental entrance symbol.
In order to achieve the aim of the study, this research examined the views of visitors to Qazvin’s eastern entrance square with the practical aim and descriptive- case study method. Required information on theoretical foundation was collected through literature review to identify the criteria and necessary features of the case study and the data was collected through questionnaires (half- open) as well as interviews with visitors based onquestionnaire results. In this study, two groups of people were questioned. The first group were the main ordinary observers who had been divided into two sub-groups as Qazvin dwellers and travelling passengers; the second group comprised of experts in urbanism and architecture. Gathered data was analyzed by SPSS software which not only analysed statistics related to the satisfaction of visitors regarding the entrance symbol of the city but also analysed identified characteristics in theoretical foundation about the symbol.
Beauty, readability, and the introduction of the city are three main criteria in the design of an entrance symbol in a city which included several indicators. According to the survey, by evaluating indicators by observers in this study, 55% of the people accepted this monument as an entrance symbol of Qazvin in contrast to 67% of the experts who did not.. Some factors such as lack of understanding of the symbol by the people and its relationship with observers, lack of connection with Qazvin’s history and identity and from an aesthetics perspective, they found the monument unacceptable. However, the main reason for people to accept the symbol was its beauty.
