Assessing the Suitability of Proper Lands for Investment in the North West of Mashhad

IntroductionGiven the horizontal expansion of cities in recent decades, there are a lot of unused and abandoned lands in large cities. These lands are now an opportunity for urban redevelopment and investment. Attracting domestic and foreign investments to cities has been very common in recent decades, which has turned the national nature of large cities to international (Ziari, 2009:43). Due to tourism and religious sites, Mashhad is a proper place to absorb investors, thus, the main aim of the present research is to locate the investment projects in the north west of Mashhad. Furthermore, it attempts to identify proper lands for economic investment. The dominant type and spatial distribution of projects was analyzed using multi-criteria decision-making method (AHP) in ARCGIS software environment.
Theoretical FrameworkIn the traditional literature of planning, land together with capital and labor (human resources) were considered as one of the three main factors of production in an economic system. To provide a wider range of social services and physical infrastructures with a better quality, local and central governments have limitations both in terms of financial and land resources for proper investment. That is why dealing with issues and problems that cities are involved with could only be achieved by collaborative programs and private investments. In addition, today, proper methods of investment are one of the most important methods of investment for redevelopment and regeneration of city cores and the worn texture of this section. It is obvious that for the revival theory to happen for the revival of central cities, lack of investment should be replaced with reinvestment.
MethodologyThis study is applied and descriptive-analytic. The model used in this study is Hierarchy Process (AHP), which allows for the evaluation of multiple criteria a decision provides. The various stages of the model are as follows:• The first stage: determining goals and criteria
• The second stage: making a graphical display of hierarchy process
• The third stage: categorization and scoring of indices
• The fourth stage: determining the priority of the indices with respect to one another
• The fifth stage: performing the operation of GIS and AHP and determining the first-priority spots for investment
After performing the model, there will be an opportunity for interpreting the results in the form of maps, where spatial display of the data will be possible in GIS. Layers are provided in the form of maps for each criterion. Using their actual values, the first step in spatializing the criteria in order to be employed in a hierarchical process will be taken.
Results and DiscussionThe final stage of the process of combining and overlapping maps is hierarchical and is in the process before, where all land areas of the North West of Mashhad, based on their potentiality to invest are divided into four categories as follows:• Lands with no priority: Such lands are generally found in the margin of eastern domain which are small, dense, and far from the main roads, and a small part of residential area is seen (majorly apartments) inside district 12.
• Low-priority lands: The vast majority of such lands are located in district 6 from region 2 in the East and North-Eastern of the domain.
• Lands with the average investment priority: This majorly includes the internal parts of district 10 in the center of the domain and the vast area of district 12 lands.
• Lands with high investment priority: These lands are majorly located in large scale parts in the northern domain located in district 12 and lands leading to the main roads such as Imam Ali Highway and Kall Chehel Baze and also Mashhad-Ghouchan industrial road.
Building permits issued in the area of North West are mainly based on District 12 and in the direction of the development of the city, which is significantly more than the center of the domain (district 10). 81% of building projects are in district 12 while only 19% in district 10 and region 6 of district 2 have received permits from municipality. It can be concluded that the development direction of the city is a far better situation in terms of absorbing private investors with the emphasis on housing compared to the other districts of the region.
Conclusion and suggestionsThe access criteria weight (0.3497) is more than any other study criteria and the access index is one of the most important criteria to determine an appropriate location for investment. Thus, the first hypothesis is confirmed. Furthermore, the western lands of the domain have the highest number of investment projects. Given to its higher rate of population, many of the issued permits are resident permits, thus, the second research hypothesis that the majority of investment in this domain was for housing was confirmed. Moreover, many of the investments accounted for 81% of the building projects and were located in the region 12 North West domain, which is consistent with private sector investment pattern. Thus, the third hypothesis of the research that it seems district 12 of North West domain absorbs the highest number of investments in this domain, was approved.