Urban settlement planning with baseline scenario approach (case study: West Azarbaijan)

Document Type : Original Research

Authors
A. aftab 1
A. A. taghiloo 2
A. Houshmand 3
1 Lecturer at Urmia University
2 Associate Professor of Geography, Urmia University
3 M.Sc. in Geography, Geography Department, urmia University,
Abstract
Extended Abstract:

Introduction

The spatial structure of the urban settlement system in a geographical domain requires a good foundation to achieve maximum productivity. By this way, the aim of the current research is to study the urban settlement planning of West Azerbaijan which is highly uncertain due to its geographical location, ethnic diversity and environmental issues. Economic freedom in the Maku Free Zone, the expansion of markets at 7 border areas of the province, the development of the Miandoab-Tehran communication network, the creation of a railway roundabout, the economic development of the Baneh region, policies to deal with ever decreasing agricultural activities due to the water and environmental crisis, making decisions on creating special economic areas in Mahabad, Urmia, Salmas and Miandoab ...are regional and local trends that have caused uncertainty in the settlement pattern of the province and the human space flow, goods and services. In a nutshell, the study aims to identify settlement scenarios of the province and the framework for the deployment of services, infrastructures and flow of capital, goods and humans in the region for spatial planning.



Methodology

This is a type of applied research and, in essence, based on new scientific, analytical and investigative methods. The statistical population of the study is 30 professors, experts and specialists in the field of spatial planning. The data gathering method was used to examine the effective factors on the urban settlements system of the province, both in documentary (secondary data) and survey (primary data), for which questionnaire and interviews were used as a survey method. To analyze the data, a combination of Delphi methods, Cross-impact analysis, and Mick-Mac software were used.



Results and Discussion

45 variables were found to be the main and strategic ones affecting the planning of the urban settlement system of West Azerbaijan province that were analyzed via Mick-Mc software.Finally, 11 effective factors were identified with 33 statuses. Accordingly, the midway and the pessimistic assumptions in the best possible range were defined to be the worse. Given theoretical foundations of the proposed study, the spatial scenarios of the province in terms its geographic extent and severity, multiplicity of cities, location and regional potentials can be summarized as follows:



First Scenario (Polar Scenario): By choosing this scenario, the future settlement system of the province will have following outcomes:

- Deletion permissions to settlement perimeter will be too low due to high concentration and security reasons and high ethnic diversity in the province as well as its inappropriate form and shape.

- The polar scenario is an illustration of highly-concentrated settlement system in which responsibility for decisions, policies, management and their implementation will be simultaneously focused on the city of Urumia.

- Urumia is practically the center of commodity exchanges at the provincial level and will be a key link for each settlement in the city.



Second Scenario (Cluster Scenario): The obvious features of this scenario are as follows:

- Although the centralization dominates the province, by coordinating and collaborating widely between settlements, reduces the focus on the province's space relative to the radical scenario. One of the main reasons for this decrease is the existence of large urban centers such as Khoy in the north, Urumia in the center, Miandoab in the south;

- In this scenario, a number of larger settlements compete with the center of Urumia, and play a central role for its surroundings.

- The headquarters of each cluster manages its communication.



Third Scenario (Archipelago Scenario): In general, the typical features of this scenario in West Azerbaijan province are as follows:

- The lack of extensive cooperation between settlements, spatial dispersion of housing, as well as the developmental equality of settlements causing communications flows mainly carried out within limited areas (cities and regions).

- The scenario of the archipelago is an image of the West Azerbaijan province as an island facing local markets and urban areas



Fourth Scenario (Multi-center): The typical features of this scenario are as follows:

- In a multi-centered scenario, focusing on the province's space is due to the development of some settlements and the wide-ranging collaboration between them. However, due to inappropriate form and body and some restrictions in different areas, there is a relative dependence on clusters.

- In this scenario, the urban complexes of the province have changed from one central space to a multicentre urban complex. Due to high convergence between central settlements and their interaction with each other, macro policies are taken collaboratively by central settlements of main areas.



Fifth Scenario (Network): The typical features of this scenario are as follows:

- This scenario presents a picture of a networked city complex (both in urban and rural settlement).

- Each settlement itself manages its connections with other settlements.

- In this scenario, no settlement is dependent on other settlements.



Conclusion

Considering the current status of central and star structure of the urban system of West Azerbaijan province, the multi-centered urban network is suitable especially due to potentially powerful cities of Khoy, Mako, Miandoab and Mahabad, the northern- southern stretch of the province, geopolitical location after realizing the multi-centered model and providing an appropriate infrastructure and substrate. The transition from the multicenter model to the network will be provided. To reach the multi-centered urban network, which is the scenario of choice for the provincial urban system, the cluster and hierarchical stage of the city's network must be reached in early phases of the province's development. Once an appropriate infrastructure and substrate is provided, the multi-center urban scenario will be realized.

Keywords

Subjects

1.1. Aftab, Ahmad; Nasmfar, Hossein; Mousavi; Mirnjagh; Eshghi Ali (2016); "The Impact of Geographical Factors on Passive Defense in the Border Areas of the West Azerbaijan Province (With an Emphasis on Locating Military Centers)", the journal of border studies 4 (2), 155-127. [in Persian]
2. Ali Akbari E, Taleshi M, Haj Amini N. (2015), Role of Local Economy in Excess Flow and Reconstruction of Regional Network System Case: Kerman Province, Quarterly journal of space economics and rural development,1(2), 37-54. [in Persian]
3. Aliakbari, E. (2012). Regional Plans and Centralization in Spatial Structure of Urban Systems Case Study : Kermanshah Province. Physical Sacial Planning, 1(2), 37-54. [in Persian]
4. Bastaminia, A., Safaeepour, M., Maleki, S., Tazesh, Y., Omidipoor, K. (2017). The trend of Urban Hierarchy Development in Khuzestan Province: a five decades analysis (1956-2006). , 10(36), 47-68. [in Persian]
5. Batten, D.F.. (1995). Network cities: creative urban agglomerations for the 21st century. Urban Studies, 32: 313-327.
6. Burger, M.J. (2011). Structure and Coopetition in Urban Networks. Erasmus University Rotterdam. Phd thesis.
7. Castells, M. (1996), The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Vol. I: The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell.
8. Dehghani Firouzabadi, J. (2010). Changes in the Theories of Regionalism. Central Eurasia Studies, 7(1), 1-28. [in Persian]
9. Derudder, B, Taylor, P.J, Ni, P, De Vos, A, Hoyler, M, Hanssens, H, Bassens, D, Huang, D, Witlox, F, Shen, W. and Yang, X. (2010). Pathways of change: shifting connectivities in the world city network, 2000-08. Urban Studies, 47: 1861-1877.
10. Ghaedi, M., Golshani, A. (2016). Content Analysis Method: from Quantity-Orientation to Quality-Orientation. , 7(23), 57-82. [in Persian]
11. Gan, L.Li Di, Song, S. (2006). Is the Zipf law spurious in explaining city-size distributions? Economics Letters, 92(2): 256-262.
12. Guan, C.He., Rowe Peter, G. (2016). Should big cities grow? Scenario-based cellular automata urban growth modeling and policy applications. Journal of Urban Management, 5 (2).
13. Hajduk, S. (2015). The Spatial Management vs. Innovativeness of Medium-Size Cities of Poland, rocedia. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 213: 879-883.
14. Hall, P., Pain, K. (2006). Eds(The Polycentric Me-tropolis: Learning from Mega-City Regions in Europe. London: Earthscan.
15. hasan zadeh, D., meskini, M. (2009). The Role of Regional Planning in National Planning of Iran and Its Effect on Human Development Provincial. Social Sciences, 16(44), 155-192. [in Persian]
16. Henderson, V. (1396). Medium size cities, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 27 (6): 583-612.
17. Higgins, Benjamin; Sawah, Donald. (2009), Regional Development Theories, Fatemeh Bazazan Translation, Ney Publishing, Tehran [in Persian]
18. Izadi, R., Rezai Panah, A. (2014). The Social and Political Bases of Evolution in the Hegemonic Political Discourses of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Contemporary Political Studies, 4(10), 47-74. [in Persian]
19. Kolhe, N. Pr., Kumar, D. K. (2016). Rurban Centers: The New Dimension of Urbanism. Procedia , 24: 1699 – 1705.
20. Lim, J. (2005). Infrastructure and urban primacy: A Theoretical Model. Urban Economics,195.
21. Meijers, E. (2007a). From central place to network model: theory and evidence of a paradigm change, TijdschriftvoorEconomische en SocialeGeografie, 98: 245-259.
22. Meshkini, Abolfazl., Rahimi., Hojatollah, (2014), Analysis of Space and State Concepts in State and Urbanization Theory of Iran. Journal of Spatial Planning, 17 (4) :87-110. [in Persian]
23. Mohammadpour Jaberi, Morteza. (2015), The political division of space and balance in regional urban system (Case study: the division of vast Khorasan province), Geographical research of urban planning, 2 (4), 575-559. [in Persian]
24. Motaghi Dastani, Afshin., Lotfi, Haidar., Sadeghi, Moses. (2014), "Political geographic dimensions of locating and transferring capital in Iran," Regional Planning Quarterly, 4 (16), 112-148. [in Persian]
25. Mousavi, Mirnejf., Nazarmar, Hossein., Avatab, Ahmad. (2013), investigating the role of natural factors in the geographical distribution of population and urban settlements using GIS and Geoda (Case study: Azarbayejhan-e-Gharb province), Journal of Geography and Environmental Studies, 2(5), 80-98. [in Persian]
26. Naeemi, Kiumars., Pourmohammadi, Mohammad Reza. (2016). identifying the key factors influencing the future status of urban slums regarding future study approach: the case study of Sanandaj. , 5(20), 53-64 [in Persian]
27. Neal, Z. (2011). From central place to network bases: a transition in the U.S. urban hierarchy, 1900-2000. City & Community, 10: 49-70.
28. Parr, J.B, (2004), The polycentric urban region: a closer inspection. Regional Studies, 38: 231-240.
29. Potter, Robert and Sally Lloyd, Evans (2005) City in the World in Development, translated by Kiomars Irandust and colleagues, the organization of municipalities and partners in the country, Tehran. [in Persian]
30. Pumain, D. (2003). Scaling laws and urban systems, Paris, France.
31. RaisDana, Fariborz (2001), Applied Application of Iran's Development and Economics, Volume II, Department of Development and Technological Sciences of Tehran, Sracheshmeh Publication. [in Persian]
32. Reggiani, A., Bucci, P., Russo, G. (2011). Accessibility and impedance forms: empirical applications to the German commuting network. International Regional Science Review, 34: 230-252.
33. Roberts, M., Lloyd-Jones, T., Erickson, B., Nice, S. (1999). Place and space in the networked city: Concep-tualizingthe integrated metropolis, Journal of Urban De-sign, 4(1): 51–66.
34. Sinjer, Paul (1358), Political Economy of Urbanization, Translated by Mehdi Kazemi Beidhendi and Farrokh Hesamyan, Tehran, Iran Publishing. [in Persian]
35. Taghiloo, A.A. (2014). Future Scenarios of Rural Settlements of Iran. Journal of Research & Rural Planning, 3(5), 83-96. [in Persian]
36. Tarigan, A. K.M., Ary, D., Samsura, A., Saut Sagala, A., Pencawan, V.M. (2017). Medan City: Development and governance under the decentralisation era. Cities, 71: 135-146.
37. Turok, I., Bailey, N. (2004). The theory of polynucle-ar urban regions and its application to Central Scotland. European Planning Studies, 12: 371-389.
38. Van Oort, F.G., Burger, M.J., Raspe, O. (2010). On the economic foundation of the urban network paradigm. Spatial integration, functional integration and urban complementarities within the Dutch Randstad. Urban Studies, 47: 725-748.
39. Wall, R.S., Van der Knaap, G.A. (2011). Sectoral differentiation and network structure within contemporary worldwide corporate networks. Economic Geography, 87: 267-308.
40. Waterhout, B, Zonneveld, W. and Meijers, E.J. (2005). Polycentric development policies in Europe: overview and debate, Built Environment, 31: 163-173.
41. Zali, N., Zamanipoor, M. (2015). Systematic Analysis of Strategic Variables of Regional Development in Scenario- based Planning (Case: Mazandaran Province). Town and Country Planning, 7(1), 1-28. doi: 10.22059/jtcp.2015.54779. [in Persian]
The Journal of Spatial Planning and Geomatics
Volume 23, Issue 1
May 2019
Pages 169-199