Urban Development Management Planning by System Dynamics (Case study: 18th District of Tehran)

The city is a dynamic system that composed of numerous subsystems that interaction and communication between them is effective on urban development. General behavior and the effect on each subsystem through the time cause to urban development or non-development. Land use planning with the aim of predicting the pattern of urban development and implementation has not been successful due to some factors such as lack of recognition significant factors the land development, interaction and conflict with each other and lack of awareness of policy results in long-term. With the rise of system approach in urban planning that tries to identify different activities that determine the nature of the human environment and understand the relationship between them, several techniques were developed to analyze these activities. System dynamics is a powerful methodology and computer simulation modeling technique for framing, understanding, and discussing about complex issues and problems. System dynamics make an opportunity for interaction effects on urban subsystems together, through the time, to adopt policies and make optimized decisions for urban development.
In Tehran, failure to achieve urban development projects’ goals on the base of mentioned reasons has caused high population growth and unbalanced urban development that is based on organic patterns. 18th district of Tehran, has experienced the hastily development in recent decades. It has also undesirable functions those are adverse with urban development and it has unbalanced development pattern. The purpose of this study is finding subsystems affecting urban development, dynamics and time effect on their behavior, and their interaction with each other in time in order to planning for development management of 18th district of Tehran.
In this paper, system dynamics has been used for designing of 18th district of Tehran development model. According to this purpose, have been identified influential factors in the development process, the most important subsystems were selected and then the process of model design and development is done in “Vensim”. Subsystems used in the model include population, economy and the land. Designed model is applied to simulate possible future options in the 18th district. Because of the importance and effective role of population factor in development and land use, options have been simulated on base of demographic changes in the model and finally, the results were compared and policies for 18th district development have been proposed.
The results of simulation show that population changes have direct effect on land use. Another side, changes in the business is effective on population increase or decrease by influence on employment rate. Therefore, usage the policies that could organize the physical space of the district and provide the housing and services needs of residents, and also increase employment opportunities, will be effective on development in this area.
Overall, the use of system dynamics modeling, due to its characteristics and capabilities,
including the ability to explore and connect the past to the present situation and steer it towards the desired future conditions and attention the subsystems and their interactions on each other, can be effective in efficiency and effectiveness of planning and urban development management.