Spatial Qualities Evaluation in New Towns Using (AHP) The Case Study of Baharestan New Town

In recent years, the population of metropolitans and large cities of Iran has had an increasing growth. This has caused irreparable damages to the economic, social, natural and ecologic infrastructure and foundations of those cities. Following the irregular population growth, new cities have been built to lower the population rate in metropolitans and to create employment opportunities. However, inattention to the qualities of urban spaces due to hasty construction and a rapid overflow of metropolitan population has created new cities favorable quality of urban and social life. Even in some cases the result has been deserted and with-no-identity cities Baharestan new town, located in the proximity of the ancient city of Isfahan, through its fitting natural potential and appropriate ecologic characteristic, can help considerably in reducing the population growth of Isfahan metropolitan and lowering economic and employment pressure on this city. The present study, after scrutinizing definitions and concepts of qualities of urban spaces and their relation and influence on other qualities presented by leading researchers of the field, came up with the most principal qualities effective in setting up new cities according to professors and experts’ opinions extracted using a questionnaire. Subsequently, using AHP method and Expert Choice software, this research assessed and measured the extracted principal qualities in the Baharestan new town. The results identified variability, efficiency, the sense of attachment, readability and vitality as principal qualities, all of which were at a relatively inappropriate condition and lower than average in Baharestan. The quality of variability was observed to be at a lower level than other qualities.