Urban Planning
taher parizadi; mahdi moradi; masoumeh saki
Abstract
Modern cities have turned into the main places for people to work and live in; therefore, they are confronted with many challenges from social, economic, environmental, and managerial aspects. The rapid growth of population, urban population in particular, and extensive immigration from the village to ...
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Modern cities have turned into the main places for people to work and live in; therefore, they are confronted with many challenges from social, economic, environmental, and managerial aspects. The rapid growth of population, urban population in particular, and extensive immigration from the village to the city, mainly to large cities, along with the need to meet the immigrants’ needs highlights the necessity of considering the existing districts and neighborhoods of the city in order to prevent its horizontal growth and decrease in the importance of its internal fabric. If the trend continues, it will lead to a decline in the quality of life and, consequently, in urban viability. A viable urban system is one where all the inhabitants’ social, economic, physical, and psychological health is considered. Viability can be seen as a way of achieving sustainable development, where urban viability can be obtained through viable neighborhoods. A viable city is one where you can live a healthy life, a city for everyone. It is regarded as a link between the past and the present. That is, it esteems the historical symbols on the one side, and acknowledges what has not yet been born on the other. The immethodical development of Iranian cities over the past few decades has confronted the urban areas with many problems, such as economic, social, and environmental ones. This research seeks to investigate the amount of viability in the central district of the city of Boroujerd. This district holds the greatest place identity in the area due to the availability of ancient, valuable elements including historical monuments such as Imam Mosque, the bazaar, squares, and several religious centers, location in the initial core and distressed area of the city, and several old passages with narrow alleys, which are characteristic of the historic fabric of a city. As the city has grown, some neighborhoods have thrived further, and others have lost their prosperity. As a result, viability and quality of life vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. The present research is a cognitive-heuristic in terms of purpose, involving a quantitative-qualitative study in terms of data and pursuing a descriptive-analytical approach in terms of nature and methodology. To achieve the purposes, the research was conducted in two parts: a documentary and a field study (questionnaire). The unit of analysis included the inhabitants of the central district of Boroujerd. Estimated sample size was calculated using the Cochran formula as 230 people aged between 15 and 70 years. GIS and SPSS (one-sample t test, ANOVA, and Friedman test) were used for data analysis, and Amos structural equation modeling for diagramming the analytical models of the structures. The research findings demonstrated that the aspects and indices of viability in the central district of Boroujerd are highly desirable. Furthermore, a comparison of the neighborhoods in the central district in terms of index and aspect mean indicated that the most viable neighborhood was Soufiyan, while the Dodange neighborhood exhibited the lowest amount of viability. According to Friedman’s prioritization, the aspects of urban services, activities, and amenities were ranked first, and urban economy was ranked last. In the structural equation model diagrammed in Amos, the aspect of urban economy exhibited the greatest impact on the environmental factors.
Urban Planning
Najma Esmailpoor; Zahra Heravi; Elham Heidari Hamane
Abstract
The growing trend in illegal construction of residential buildings is a problem that has impacted the urban planning and management system in Iran in the past few decades. Violation of urban planning and technical regulations is a fact that has existed long. Despite the penalties that have been considered ...
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The growing trend in illegal construction of residential buildings is a problem that has impacted the urban planning and management system in Iran in the past few decades. Violation of urban planning and technical regulations is a fact that has existed long. Despite the penalties that have been considered for infractions in construction, the phenomenon has been observed extensively in the city of Yazd, including the territory of Municipal District 3. For prevention of infractions in construction, it is necessary to study the nature and causes of the issue from different aspects. This is an applied survey with a descriptive, causal, and correlational methodology. The factor analysis technic was used for decreasing the large number of factors affecting the commitment of infractions in construction around cities. The research population was divided into two groups: a sample of size 161 of the municipality visitors over 20 years of age and all the expert officials of the municipality. The main purpose of the research was to organize, systematize, and regularize residential construction practices, and the operational objectives were to identify the major causes of infractions in the field of residential construction and to propose appropriate solutions for their reduction in the target municipality. The study involved an investigation of the relationship between the increase in the construction infractions committed by the citizens and three factors including the attitude of the municipality toward infractions as a source of revenue, inefficient monitoring of construction practices on the part of the municipality, and the bureaucracy dominant in the municipality issuing construction permits. Based on the findings from 12884 cases of infraction in construction committed within the territory under investigation between 1991 and 2016, 60% of the infractions concerned construction practices without permits, and 40% pertained to ones where the permit contents had been violated. The most frequent issued sentences involved demolition and penalization along with reconstruction in some cases. The following conclusions were made based on the obtained results. 1- Six major factors that account for about 60% of the tendency to commit infractions in residential construction practices within Municipal District 3 of Yazd include insufficient documentation, poor instruction plans, permit applicants’ incomplete knowledge of the construction regulations, bureaucracy, and violation of the decisions made by the municipality and poor monitoring. 2- The visitors’ opinion on the causes of infractions is not exactly the same as the experts’. 3- Being the committers of the infractions, the visitors regard the above items as the major causes, in that order. The experts, however, consider the following items: the high costs of obtaining construction permits and completion certificates, constructors’ unwillingness to obtain permits, long process of permit issuance, lack of correspondence between constructors’ authorities and responsibilities, low enforceability of the Article No. 100 Commission decisions, dependency of the municipal budget on the revenue from infractions, poor monitoring of construction practices, and limited sustainable financial resources for the municipality. 4- There is a relatively high correlation between the commitment of infractions in construction and the three factors of the attitude of the municipality toward infractions as a source of revenue, inefficient monitoring of residential construction practices on the part of the municipality, and the bureaucracy dominant in the municipality in the process of issuing construction permits. Therefore, it can help decrease infractions in construction within the territory of Municipal District 3 to enhance public awareness of urban construction regulations, lower the cost of issuing construction permits and simplify the procedure, provide sustainable sources of revenue, enhance the construction monitoring system of the municipality, and improve the relevant bureaucracy in the municipality.
Urban Management
javad mahdianpoor; mohammad taghavi zavareh; hamidreza saremi
Abstract
Urban development, population growth, and intensified urbanization have led to a variety of issues such as physical distress and decay in most cities around the world. Besides triggering physical effects, this has imposed plenty of economic and social consequences on residential neighborhoods. Therefore, ...
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Urban development, population growth, and intensified urbanization have led to a variety of issues such as physical distress and decay in most cities around the world. Besides triggering physical effects, this has imposed plenty of economic and social consequences on residential neighborhoods. Therefore, it seems essential to investigate, assess, and acknowledge these consequences and to adopt solutions to alleviate the present conditions. The purpose of this study is to explain the urban acupuncture approach for improvement of the quality of residential neighborhoods and presentation of local solutions for management of the problems encountered in residential neighborhoods. In fact, the research seeks to address the notions, principles, and criteria in urban acupuncture in the urban neighborhood scale and apply them to the Tajrish neighborhood in Tehran, Iran. In general, urban acupuncture involves three stages of executive action. In the first stage, the objectives of the interventions are determined after an analysis of the conditions and dominant economic, social, and environmental system. Once the goals are defined, the intervention range is specified, and the points within each region, sub-systems, and stimuli are then determined. In the second stage, the measures and interventions pertaining to each point and the effects and results of the interventions are explained. The important point here is the necessity of appropriateness of the interventions to the conditions of each point and to the effective area for achievement of the desired and expected outcomes. In the third and final stage of measures, the intervention times are planned. The present descriptive-analytical survey involves a fundamental and applied study. The Tajrish neighborhood was selected as the area under investigation. It is a historic core of the city with an extra-local role due to its several potentials, but is confronted today with problems such as physical distress and decay and environmental, economic, and social issues. For evaluation of urban acupuncture solutions within the area investigated in the present study, the theoretical framework, tools, and solutions in urban acupuncture were first reviewed, and the systems affecting the physical, environmental, social, and economic aspects were then explained for specification of the zones of intervention. Next, we analyzed the results obtained by factors such as the influential beneficiaries, probable outcomes of urban acupuncture, and effective stimuli within the area using the method of network analysis and the DC, PRP, and PCI indicators. For the application of urban acupuncture stimuli to the intervention zones, they were then prioritized using thirty mental images for the examination of the residents’ spatial perception, Hierarchical Analysis Process (AHP), and the Expert Choice software, followed by an analysis of the intervention zones using the SWOT technique. A comparative method was used for presentation of the solutions given successful acupuncture experiences and the facilities and limitations of the neighborhood. The research results indicate that sites such as Tajrish Market, Maqsud Beyk River Valley, Arezu Park, and Museum of Music are the most sensitive points in the neighborhood for application of the intervention stimuli.
Urban Planning
mohammadreza pourjafar; faramarz rostami
Abstract
Although the planning system has made plenty of theoretical and practical efforts in regard to the transformation of urbanization, it has failed to officially prevent the increasing trend of urban problems. While almost one-third of the urban population is living in poor conditions, and is stuck in a ...
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Although the planning system has made plenty of theoretical and practical efforts in regard to the transformation of urbanization, it has failed to officially prevent the increasing trend of urban problems. While almost one-third of the urban population is living in poor conditions, and is stuck in a socio-economic vicious circle accompanied by physical distress, the benefits of urban growth are gained by powerful informal roles or formal roles with informal practices. In effect, the planning system interferes with informal practices and roles subconsciously and non-transparently. These informalities have also received less attention in the conducted studies, where powerful, influential informal roles and credible, covert, useful informal practices have been neglected. These are roles that ignore the law and public interest, or cause changes in the law and policies for their own satisfaction and informal practices that allocate the greatest benefits within a short time exclusively to particular groups. Persistence of such conditions will result in irreparable costs for the country under investigation, namely Iran. Hence, the present study aims to investigate how formal and informal practices and roles interact with each other given their current concentration on distressed urban areas. It also seeks to present a conceptual framework for formal planning confronting the informalities in the domain. The study attempts to answer three important questions. 1) How does formal planning address informal practices and roles? 2) How do informal practices and roles utilize formal planning? 3) How can this interference and conflict be resolved? To answer these questions, we investigated the actual power and background of the planning action, interference of formal planning with informalities, informalities’ utilization of planning, and transformation of urbanization in the country. Instances of the four ways in which formal and informal roles and practices confront each other were also identified and analyzed. The study involved documentary and library investigation given the nature of the research questions. The methodology also included content analysis and logical reasoning. We analyzed scholars’ perspectives and experiences in regard to the issue, the planning background, and the effective factors in the confrontation given the country’s urbanization conditions, particularly the experiences and the results of the conducted studies in distressed areas. For explanation of the confrontation atmosphere, it could be suggested that there is an informal sector in the physical, economic, and social domains in the country along with the formal sector. The two sectors intersect in many events, functioning like a whirlpool that leads to endless distress. Inefficient confrontation has been the outcome of the formality-informality whirlpool, employed as a fact in the world of planning in confrontation with distressed areas through interaction with the country’s historical and political conditions and macroeconomic and social policies. In this destructive whirlpool, it is the social circle that initiates the discussed issues, which then enter into the economic circle, and are finally represented in the physical circle. Confrontation from formal planning to resolve the issues, however, conversely begins with the physical dimension. That is why planning ends without actually being started. To overcome these issues, a conceptual framework appropriate to the conditions dominant in the country was proposed, with an emphasis on a more serious consideration of the social aspect and its influence on the others in planning.
Jamal Beigi
Abstract
The crime scene always has a fixed nature and a specific physical space with physical restrictions. Human beings are always creating environmental diversity, and urban crime therefore increases as social relation criteria multiply. To cope with this habitat of crimes, every necessary measure must be ...
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The crime scene always has a fixed nature and a specific physical space with physical restrictions. Human beings are always creating environmental diversity, and urban crime therefore increases as social relation criteria multiply. To cope with this habitat of crimes, every necessary measure must be taken to prevent interaction between the adjunct and induced elements and the environmental one. The present descriptive-analytical applied research involves a library and field investigation. The research population included 268 criminals in the city of Miandoab, Iran arrested or imprisoned during the period from April to September 2016 at police stations and administrative units, from among whom 122 were selected based on Cochran’s sample size formula. For investigation of the role of residence in the geography of urban crime in Miandoab, therefore, the literature on the topic was explained using psychological theories, criminal sociology, and the geography of urban crime, and the field analysis was based on the information received from the research population. Through an examination of the geographic model of urban crime in Miandoab using the kernel density estimation model, it was found that Kuye Qara Varan, Kuye Vali Abad, Janbazan Street, and Kuye Vakil Kandi suffered from very high crime rates. The most significant crimes committed in the city included bag snatching, public property damage, vagrancy and begging, clashes, street fighting, and footpadding. In an examination of the impacts of residence on various types of crime, it was demonstrated that environmental elements most seriously affected crimes such as theft and drug addiction. It was also indicated in a study of the features of crime scenes that large numbers of old, inexpensive houses had the greatest role in the commitment of crime. According to the analysis results, the improper design of buildings and presence of narrow alleys were two of the most important physical features affecting crime commitment. Pearson’s correlation test showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between residence and crime. The results of multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the set of predictor variables including the physical and social characteristics of crime hotspots, specifications of places and districts, physical environment, and climatic elements accounted for about 32% of the crime research criterion variable, where the physical characteristics of crime hotspot component contributed most. The importance of the findings of the present research as compared to the previous scientific and organizational studies lies in the demonstration of the fundamental point that criminal geography has a constant nature and a particular physical atmosphere with physical limitations. Due to the progressive, evolutionary attitude of urbanization in Iran, residence diversity is always observed, and crimes increase also as social relation criteria multiply. Therefore, all modern techniques concerning environmental security in urban spaces should be employed in urban engineering to prevent interaction between the adjunct and induced elements and the residential element, combination of which ensures the existence of urban crime.
Urban Planning
zeynab aliabadi; mahmoud mohammdi
Abstract
This research was conducted to investigate the effects of the parameters pertaining to the spatial structure of passages on imperviousness in passages less than six meters wide, which has led to distressed areas in the city of Zanjan, Iran. The research questions inquired what factors in the spatial ...
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This research was conducted to investigate the effects of the parameters pertaining to the spatial structure of passages on imperviousness in passages less than six meters wide, which has led to distressed areas in the city of Zanjan, Iran. The research questions inquired what factors in the spatial structure of the passage network affected the distress caused by imperviousness and how they could be examined. The above questions were addressed using a statistical method known as the logistic regression test, specifying the presence or absence of a relationship between imperviousness and space syntax indices, such as global and local integration, connection, selection, and depth. The results demonstrated that some of the spatial structure index variables could be effective on the amount of distress. According to the Wald statistic results and the relevant sig. values, the variables global integration and selection did not have a significant effect on the amount of distress in passages less than six meters wide in the distressed areas of Zanjan, because the values in the B column were positive, and the corresponding sig. values were not significant at the error level of 0.05. This indicated that there was proper global relationship and integration between the passage network in distressed areas and those in the surrounding areas. In other words, distressed area neighborhoods were not poorer than those around them in terms of global integration, and an increase in global integration would not have a considerable effect on distress in passages less than six meters wide. On the other hand, connection and local integration, in that order, had significant effects on distress in Zanjan in the present conditions, because the values in the B column were negative, and the corresponding sig. values were statistically significant at the error level of 0.05. This demonstrated that distress could be reduced with an increase in connection in successive dead ends and in local integration in passages within neighborhoods in distressed areas in Zanjan. The overall results of the analysis showed that poor internal structure (poor connection or local integration) in distressed areas in Zanjan was the main factor increasing the amount of distress, and such a weakness in interconnection in neighborhoods with several dead ends had made them difficult to access. These hardly accessible points on passages less than six meters wide within neighborhoods could be spatially isolated over time, increasing distress. Given the poor local structure, therefore, it was suggested for reduction of distress in infected areas in Zanjan that connection and local integration should be increased.
Urban Sociology
sahar esmaeilpourhamedani; Esmaeil shieh; Kianoosh Zakerhaghighi
Abstract
A common type of crime in modern cities, vandalism has had many negative consequences, causing social and cultural problems, financial losses, etc., and its negative image is more persistent in public urban spaces than those of other crimes. Moreover, the necessity of concern for the issue of vandalism ...
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A common type of crime in modern cities, vandalism has had many negative consequences, causing social and cultural problems, financial losses, etc., and its negative image is more persistent in public urban spaces than those of other crimes. Moreover, the necessity of concern for the issue of vandalism becomes clearer than for other crimes by consequences such as the sense of insecurity, feeling of being victimized, sense of carelessness about urban spaces, ignorance of aesthetic aspects. At the same time, a group including psychologists and sociologists believe in the impact of internal and personality factors, and other groups including architects and urban planners believe in the effect of spatial conditions on vandalism. The main view of this paper is based on the simultaneous roles of both factors. The major purpose is to examine the role of setting and spatial conditions in prevention of vandal behavior through development of hazard perception and fear of crime commitment given the environmental, social, cultural, and other conditions in Iranian urban spaces. The case study investigates the Borje Ghorban neighborhood in the city of Hamadan, Iran, evaluated given the internal factors as containing potential vandals. This is an analytical documentary study that examines the relationships between the variables with the method of correlation. The paper assumes that vandals are uniformly distributed in the public urban spaces of the neighborhood. The spatial variables and prevalence of vandal behavior were extracted from objective field observations and questionnaires. The data were then analyzed with SPSS and statistical tests. The roles of location, monitoring, and population density were considered as spatial indicators under investigation. In data collection from the passages in the public urban spaces in the Borje Ghorban neighborhood, a very important role was considered for movement to make it possible to classify and separate the information on the target passages and spaces. The parameters considered in the separation of the spaces included wave movement, change of level, the floor, typicality, details, publicity, complexity, suitability, scale, street lighting, and here and there. The assessment of the independent variable of monitoring involved parameters such as inside-outside and outside-inside control, land use installation and space involvement in time periods, and street restaurant tables. The data concerning the independent variable of population density were collected given the available documents and residential density based on land uses including local and extra-local uses. Residential population density and peripheral population density were assessed at the same time. The parameters considered for collection of data on the role of the setting included the quality of successive views, sense of the setting, healthy environment, healthy image, healthy behavior, and covert spaces in public urban spaces. The findings were consistent with the theoretical expectations and research literature, and the results indicated that the quality and quantity of monitoring, population density, and setting are effective on vandals’ hazard perception as they commit vandalism. In other words, presence at particular settings causes a sense of fear of crime commitment due to the expected consequences, which ultimately prevents vandal behavior, or causes it to occur elsewhere.
Alireza Karimi; hossein daneshmehr
Abstract
Parks are regarded as constituting one of the most important spaces in Tehran, Iran. One of the oldest, largest parks in the city, Sorkhe-Hesar Forest Park, located at busy urban nodes, has unique functions. Optimal use of the space is possible when users feel secure therein. Although known as an extra-regional ...
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Parks are regarded as constituting one of the most important spaces in Tehran, Iran. One of the oldest, largest parks in the city, Sorkhe-Hesar Forest Park, located at busy urban nodes, has unique functions. Optimal use of the space is possible when users feel secure therein. Although known as an extra-regional park,it is visited mainly by residents of Municipal District 13 of Tehran. This can be accounted for by several factors, a major one being perception of security in the park among citizens. Due to the large area of the park and its partitioning, there cannot be a discussion of a single perception of security in the park. Furthermore, security is a multi-dimensional notion, where each of the dimensions may be perceived differently in different partitions of the park. Accordingly, the main purpose of the research is to investigate the perceptions of different aspects of security by visitors to different partitions of Sorkhe-Hesar Forest Park and to examine if there are significant differences between them. The park has been divided by the municipality into six partitions, including Khorgasht (‘picnic’), Eghamat-Entezar-Tafrih (‘stay-wait-fun’), Piyaderavi-Honarhaye Mohiti (‘walk-environmental arts’), Aramesh (‘peace’), Tafrihate Fa'al (‘amusement), and Tabiatgardi-Hefazat (‘ecotourism-conservation’). Due to the presence of wildlife and passage of animal species, the ecotourism-conservation partition has turned into a protected area in which tourists are not allowed. Therefore, the partition is excluded from the spatial domain of the study. This is a quantitative survey with a researcher-made questionnaire used as tool. The research population includes all the women and men aged 18 years or more visiting the five included partitions of Sorkhe-Hesar Park during the survey. Given the spatial domain under investigation, there was space and time sampling in addition to visitor sampling. The findings obtained from the 504 visitors in the sample were analyzed using SPSS and GIS. The six aspects of security perception in the above five partitions of Sorkhe-Hesar Park were found reliable, and there were significant differences between perceptions of financial, dignity, public property, and public order security in the partitions. The overall perception of security of the visitors was obtained through addition of their scores in the six aspects. The findings from the overall perceptions of security in the different partitions of the park demonstrated that the highest and lowest means concerned the stay-wait-fun and walk-environmental arts partitions, respectively. The differences between the overall perceptions of security in the different partitions were statistically significant. That is, citizens’ perception of security in the different partitions of Sorkhe-Hesar Park can explain their decisions to visit or not visit them to a great extent. The perception of security in the different partitions of the park can be enhanced through use of citizens as a contributing factor, establishment of more security posts and police and municipality patrols, use of CCTV, establishment of weekend markets, construction and development of educational and cultural centers such as mosques and libraries and presentation of courses in various fields, enhancement of cellular coverage, equipment of less crowded passages with proper lighting, installation of cluster lights in clusters, etc.
Urban Design
Forouzan Rahmani; Hossein Nourmohammadzad
Abstract
A structure is a whole composed of divisions, connectors, joints, and boundaries, which are formed through transformations around regulators in accordance with certain principles. The structure theory, selected as the theoretical framework, comprehensively addresses the structure components, functions ...
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A structure is a whole composed of divisions, connectors, joints, and boundaries, which are formed through transformations around regulators in accordance with certain principles. The structure theory, selected as the theoretical framework, comprehensively addresses the structure components, functions that create the structure (transformations), regulators, which serve to regulate the structure, and principles, which form the basis for the structure. Every structure involves a meaning, an idea formed in the reader’s mind of a word, sentence, paragraph, or text. The structure of meaning involves a network of semantic units taking shape through transformations around regulators in adherence to certain principles. Likewise, the physical structure of a city is a whole composed of physical components (form, material, and content) taking shape through transformations around regulators in adherence to certain principles. People react to the surrounding environment according to the meaning taken from it, and their responses to the environment are based on what it means to them. It is therefore important to study the meaning of the environment. The necessity of addressing urban design by focusing on meaning is clear as long as the main audience of meaning is man, and the most important purpose of urban design is to establish a relationship between man and his perceived environment. Research on semantic structure in the context of urban studies can be conducted from its different aspects. Since the physical aspect is the most tangible, stable, objective aspect of the city, such research is performed within its physical structure. The historic area of the city of Yazd, Iran is one of the most valuable areas that could be examined as a text in the city viewed as a book. As a text, the area involves words, sentences, and paragraphs that are semantically rich. Each piece of the area assumes a role as a word. A set of pieces forms a sentence, a set of sentences make a paragraph, and the set of paragraphs creates the text. The text can be read as a whole with no interference with the validity of the paragraphs, sentences, or words, and each word, sentence, or paragraph can be recited with no reference to the whole text to obtain the meaning. In recent years, the physical structure of the historic area of Yazd has lost part of its meaning due to factors such as isolation, destruction, and distress, and other parts have been left with inadequate meanings. This has caused problems with the interpretation of the text, preventing the reader’s mind from developing a clear image thereof. Moreover, some of the interventions made in the area have caused the relevant meanings to be lost. It seems necessary, therefore, to conduct research on provision of agreement between the semantic and physical structures. The notions of structure, meaning, and physique were first reviewed in this research, and their theoretical models were developed and presented. Then, the semantic and physical structures of the historic area under investigation were studied with a descriptive survey using the above models, and the relationship between the two structures was examined with a comparative method. The achievements of the research included the provision of macro-, mid-, and micro-level agreement and correspondence between the physical and semantic structures and the intersection of the principles and their components. Use of the presented models in similar cases is recommended.
