International Journal of

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Iran is located in a high-risk seismic zone of earthquakes. It has thousands of valuable historic buildings, mostly made of unreinforced masonry, which is quite vulnerable to natural hazards, especially earthquakes. The conservation and seismic upgrading of these buildings is vital for their survival. However, resources are limited and some sort of prioritization is needed in order to allocate the budget. There are several factors, which should be considered when ranking heritage buildings, but this paper mainly focuses on the values of historic buildings and describes a survey undertaken to find out whether it is possible to rank them. The method applied is choosing a particular group of people and determine whether they can classify buildings into a hierarchy? The results showed that most people could perform this task, so some sort of hierarchy exists, although different groups might choose different hierarchies.

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  The study seeks to address the importance of urban stream ecosystems from the perspective of urban ecology, human health and social well-being in the context of urban planning. The case study area is Paveh stream in the City of Paveh. The data from the case study area were gathered from questionnaire, existing scientific and library studies and by conducting interviews with residents and authorities. Once the importance of the biodiversity of the stream had been studied based on the existing ecological data, the social importance of the stream and the linkages between human health, social well-being and the biodiversity of the stream ecosystem were addressed.

  Based on the results of the survey and other sources of information, it was discussed that urban stream ecosystems can be rich in biodiversity and function as ecological movement corridors for species .Urban stream corridors can thus be an important part of the urban green infrastructure .Also we can make the weather fine, extend green space, prepare peaceful environment for residents and bring the countryside effects of nature into cities through improvement of stream landscape.

Finally, regarding the finding of this study some suggestions and implications are mentioned to improve the quality of the stream.

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Abstract Environmental Justice (EJ) concept consists of multifaceted movements, community struggles, and discourses in contemporary societies that seek to reduce environmental risks, increase environmental protections, and generally reduce environmental inequalities suffered by minority and poor communities a term that incorporates ‘environmental racism’ and ‘environmental classism,’ captures the idea that different racial and socioeconomic groups experience differential access to environmental quality. This article explores environmental justice as an urban phenomenon in urban planning and applies it in peri-urban environment of a metropolis. Tehran peri-urban environments which are the result of meeting the city- village- nature systems or "city-village junction" have gradually faced effects such as accelerated environmental decline, changes without land-use plan, and severe service deficiencies. These problems are instances of environmental injustice which make the planners to adjust the problems and use and apply the appropriate strategies and policies by looking for solutions and resorting to theories, techniques and methods related to environmental justice. In order to access to this goal, try to define environmental justice through justice and determining environmental justice indices to analysis environmental injustice in case study. Then, make an effort to introduce some criteria to select case study in two micro and micro levels. Qiyamdasht town as the peri-urban environment of Tehran metropolis is chosen and examined to show the existence of environmental injustice by questionnaire analysis and SPSS software. Finally, use AIDA technique to design a strategic plan and reduce environmental injustice in case study by introducing the better scenario to be used in policy- and decision-making areas.

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Electronic cities result from the implication of information and communication technology (ICT) in the contemporary era. Significant ICT development and internet network expansion as well as the need of urban management to new ideas in managing cities lead us toward a new strategy called "electronic cities". The current study aims at investigating the Electronic Cities' Strategic Planning Case Study: Uremia, Iran. The research method is documentary and survey research population consists of mangers and specialists working in Uremia's urban planning and ICT, obtained from Morgan table. To collect data, Likert spectrum is employed. Findings indicate that the most important challenges in the way of establishing an electronic city include the lack of strategic document for urban development, high number of decision-making centers and administrative extra parallel works among them, the inclination of the urban managers toward traditional methods, low-speed, high-cost internet connection, the lack of infrastructures for ICT, the lack of digital literacy among citizens and so on. With respect to ANOVA results, findings indicate that some of the sub elements play a key role in the establishment of electronic cities. Concerning the inequality of the role of factors effective on the establishment of electronic cities, each factor's sub elements has been ranked through multi-criteria decision making techniques and TOPSIS model. According to the findings, some strategies have been recommended, which need the serious care of urban managers and planners in the metropolitan Uremia.

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Urban planning rules and considering land use regarding faults can change the consequences of natural hazard such as earthquake. Vulnerability risk is increasing in Region 1 because of existence of the north fault, steep slopes and continuous construction of high-rise buildings. It is clear that Region 1’s Master Plan shouldn’t be prepared without considering natural hazard such as earthquake. This study targets two main goals, first, to assess the degree of land use vulnerability to seismic risk and second, to classify areas based on their vulnerability degree. Nine indicators were extracted from previous studies to analyze the vulnerability of land use in Master Plan of Region 1, Tehran. According to different features of each indicator a score from 1 to 4 was allocated for each feature. The vulnerability degree of 181 areas were shown using Categorical Principle Component Analysis (CATPCA) in which areas were divided into four categories and the final result was visualized. The main results of this study showed that more about 50% of the areas were located in the highly-at-risk region. It was concluded that increase in the building density, number of floors, and distance from open spaces would be resulted in higher risk of earthquake damage. The major practical contribution of the present research was that it provided evidence to show that much focus required on reconsidering seismic risk in the future plans.

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The aim of evaluating and studying the creative city indicators of the city of Qazvin is to determine the creativity trend of this city during the past years and to recognize the dominant field of creativity for this city. Therefore, this study has tried to analyze the creative city indicators about the city of Qazvin by using “descriptive-analysis” method as well as applying secondary data, TOPSIS model, AHP model and SPSS software. First, 13 indicators have been collected to determine the creativity trend from2009 to 2015, then the current trend of creativity in recent years has been obtained using quantitative models. Regardless of the year 2009 and the years before that, the best rank belongs to 2013 with 0.3228 scores. Generally, the creativity trend has decreased with a gentle slope in recent years. In the following sections, within introducing the dominant field of creativity among the five investigated fields, this conclusion has been made that the city of Qazvin has potentials to move toward a creative city.

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“The urban researches in Iran aren't applicable to the real challenges of Iran’s cities”. In order to examine the mentioned hypothesis, “existing problems of Iran’s cities” and “Iran’s urban researches” are compared by means of the urban news and research journals. The framework analyze method [a kind of qualitative research method] has been used to analyze the data in the form of axial-thematic codes. The findings showed researches conform to problems approximately 78 percent in themes but the importance and preference of both themes and axial codes in researches differ from existing problems, which indicates some researches don't concern problems.

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Nowadays, “Smart City” is a very growing and promoting concept. Unlike other concepts related to cities, like digital or green city, it encompasses all technological, human and institutional factors. However, there are too many different viewpoints and definitions of this concept in the literature. The problem statement of this research is that despite the existence of many points of view and definitions for the “smart city” concept, the management part of a particular city needs to formulate a special definition of “smartness” based on the specific characteristics, goals, priorities, policies, and constraints of that city. This paper provides urban planners and managers with an approach that helps them to determine a set of validated, customized and prioritized characteristics for the target city. These characteristics can be used to formulate a desired definition for the city, as an input for strategic planning of a smart city, a guide for aligning the main goals of a city, and a criterion for prioritizing the urban projects for a particular city. Our proposed approach consists of two phases. The first phase is based on a thorough content analysis on the significant body of the literature in order to take a valid and acceptable range of different viewpoints and characteristics of the smart city notion. The second phase relies on the characteristics resulted in the first phase and involves a specific form of validation, customization and prioritization steps for a particular city so as to determine a set of unique characteristics based on the upstream documents and stakeholders’ opinions. In order to show the applicability of the proposed approach, we present the results of applying this approach for the city of Tehran, the capital of Iran.

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Despite negative perspectives on their consequences, gated communities continue to spread in cities due to structural reasons such as globalization and economic neo-liberalism. Hence, there is a need to seek for a way of achieving a balance and make these communities livable. Due to agreement with economic market perspectives, livability principles might offer a solution for mediating the social consequences of gated communities. This survey aimed to examine the physical factors influencing social livability of gated communities and identify the degree of their prominence. To collect the data, four gated communities in Tehran were selected through cluster sampling. An analysis of 258 questionnaires and our observation of the physical features of the gated communities indicated five physical features affecting social livability of gated communities. The results showed that mixed uses had the biggest effect on the social livability of gated communities followed by mixed housing, accessibility, walkability and sociability respectively. Although it might be impossible to put a halt to the expansion of gated communities in the short run, attempts can be made to attract different classes of people to these communities through mixing different uses and prevent from the fragmentation of gated communities. Well-connected and walkable streets help many daily activities occur within walking distance promoting the security of the neighborhood. Designing sociable public places where everyone is welcomed without any type of exclusion or limitation increases social bonds within gated communities which in turn promotes resident’s sense of community.

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Rest areas have been built on the freeway to avoid traffic accidents and drowsiness so that road travelers can rest. These supplemental rest areas are very small-sized resting facilities located between the larger regular rest areas, which is a unique design. However, the management of rest areas and their accommodations need to be improved by considering the effective factors involved. In this spirit, the purpose of this research is to study the effect of users’ preferences into planning parameters in rest areas. The study examines several rest areas, their roles and services. Customer satisfaction includes check-in time and purchase, type of service for travelers, intention to use the rest areas service, and satisfaction with the rest areas service.
A survey study was carried out among 360 passengers of four rest areas in different locations in Iran. The participants claimed that providing praying room (M= 4.13) is the service most expected from rest areas. They also expected better landscaping of these places in providing shaded spaces (M= 4.13) to mitigate temperatures in hot seasons. The results also show that there is a significant difference between genders in terms of recreational activities (t= 2.81, α= 0.005), landscape amenities (t= 2.01, α= 0.044), welfare services (t= 3.05, α= 0.002), where women prioritized these factors more than men did. The findings of this research can be used in better management, accommodating, and designing of future crossing rest areas according to tourists’ preferences.
 

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The advent of modern planning in the early twentieth century and its failure in practice caused the emergence of planning crisis which theory-practice gap has been its central theme of debate. This gap begot various readings of urban planning theory to make theory and practice much closer. Radical planning, as one of these readings, deprives the power of central government in favour of empowering the citizens and considers the highest level of participation in decision-making processes for them. Nevertheless, it failed to address the planning crisis and theorists continued theory making to address the crisis. Hence, the current study aims to investigate radical planning with a critical perspective by using a deep-seated research method and referring to related topics. Results ended in finding reasons led to the failure of radical planning to address planning crisis. The uncertainty of radical planning process, the idealistic looks of theorists and radical planning mismatch with the current forms of state planning are three main reasons which hindered it from addressing planning crisis despite being the turning point of urban planning theories. 

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An efficient road network remains among the topical issues in the international urban development forum. This is because roads link interrelated land uses, in addition to connecting them with the contiguous metropolitan areas, thus a key contributing factor for an accelerated socio-economic uplift. To sustain this, planning standards that delimit urban road reserves are usually prepared and enforced through development control to ensure that roads are maintained for their intended purpose. This study through a case study was, therefore, undertaken in Kisii Town, Kenya, to investigate if the unauthorized developments on road reserves are regulated. It correspondingly tests the hypothesis that there is no statistically significant difference between the planning standards used in regulating road reserves and observed compliance by developers. The study was steered by the public interest theory of regulation targeting residential developments which were proportionately and randomly drawn from the seven neighbourhoods. Data were collected using a high-resolution satellite image and a questionnaire. Data analysis relied on GIS, t-test, logistic regression, and linear regression. Research findings demonstrated a statistically significant difference between the approved planning standards and the extent of compliance by developers, signifying that the County Government of Kisii did not undertake adequate development control. Non-compliance was mostly heightened by the developers’ unawareness of the building plan approval process and inadequate inspection during construction. This study deepens the international debate on development control by spatially and statistically illuminating how the extent of compliance with the planning standards that regulate road reserves may be empirically analyzed.

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In spite of the extensive body of research focusing on the concept of "public interest" within the realm of urban planning, there exists a notable dearth in the discourse surrounding the challenges and impediments encountered in actualizing public interest within the context of urban planning and management. The primary objective of this paper is to systematically identify and elucidate the obstacles impeding the realization of public interest within the urban development plans of Iran, offering a theoretical framework to explicate the interrelations among these hindrances. To achieve this goal, an investigation and analysis are conducted on three megamalls situated in Tehran City, serving as representative cases. The principal method employed for data collection is a semi-structured interview, with subsequent analysis carried out through the utilization of Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT). The outcomes of this inquiry reveal a categorization of barriers into five overarching domains: deficiencies within the urban planning system, conflicts of interest, the legalization of transgressions, a passive civil society, and challenges pertaining to public interest. Each of these categories is expounded upon comprehensively, delving into the nuances of their respective implications. Furthermore, a comparative discussion is presented, drawing parallels between our identified categories and analogous research findings on public interest conducted in various other countries.

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Preserving the Natural Environmental Cultural Heritage (NECH) and improving the urban Quality of Life (QOL) are crucial urban planning issues that play critical roles in cities. The modernization and expansion of cities due to population growth, lifestyle changes, and improved quality of life are inevitable movements in developing and developed countries. Although the new progression has brought many opportunities concerning socio-economic aspects, it has also caused some challenges for urban planning, particularly in conserving cultural heritage. It reaches a point where it is possible to visualize the link between heritage conservation and sustainability, which will enhance the development of future cities. The present study investigates how the NECH and QOL have evolved to be implemented in urban strategic planning to upgrade the NECH and QOL values. The research time scope covers 1920, when the first use of “standard of living” (before QOL) was proposed, until 2023. By reviewing and analyzing texts and documents of historical transformation of the NECH and QOL, tracing and overlying common fields of the NECH and QOL concepts (historical-structural analysis and comparative analysis), and organizing sequential cause and effect relations between milestones and evidence of NECH and QOL historical transformations (timeline diagram), the authors explained the strategic planning approach to support the (NECH and QOL) using the adaptive analysis method and extracting both substantive and procedural components for urban spatial, strategic planning process. The research results presented an urban spatial strategic planning model according to the NECH and QOL components (substantial and procedural). Due to the nature of urban spatial strategic planning (focus on uncertainty in planning; probability of planning process; need to expand the scope of planning in the broader political, social, economic, and environmental fields; focus on paying attention to diverse shareholders; and ability to support urban planning models based on description, analysis, and prescription); a cyclical-continual steps (1) assessing the current situation, (2) problem finding, (3) cause and effect problem analysis, (4) producing a final statement of significant issues and goals, (5) presenting decision options and suggestions (problem-solving), and (6) sharing strategic planning related to cultural and natural heritage among key shareholders and residents, with special content in each step, configured. The achievement of this spatial strategic planning model is bridging between the quality of life and the natural environment cultural heritage concepts and applying its principles of substance and procedure adapted to local conditions in such a way that the capacities of the natural environment heritage of the cities are coextensive with upgrading the resident’s quality of life.