جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه "urban sprawl" در نشریات گروه "هنر و معماری"

Iran is a country prone to earthquakes in which so many cities have experienced earthquakes in far and near past. Although there is a high potential for earthquakes to be destructive, the level of losses and damages of them is not solely dependent on the magnitude and the location of the earthquake, or physical aspects of buildings and urban areas. In the analysis of the impacts of natural hazards, three broad categories have been defined: 1) focus on natural hazard's biophysical impacts because of the place it occurs; 2) focus on hazard's impacts on societies that experience the hazard because of the social characteristics of those societies and 3) an approach that takes into account both of impacts. This article takes the second approach to analyze the effects of natural hazards. In this approach, social characteristics of the communities and societies, in which earthquake happens, come to center stage. Social vulnerability is one of the important aspects of earthquake risks and consequences. In addition, the progress of communication and transportation technologies and an increase in agricultural production surplus because of the Industrial Revolution has caused many rural settlers to migrate to cities. The increasing population raise in cities has led to many economic, social and environmental consequences, of which excessive horizontal and leapfrog development (which is called urban sprawl in scientific literature) is one. In this article urban sprawl is defined as: "unplanned, far-from-center and automobile-accessed growth of cities which has environmental, economic and social effects and is characterized by low density, segregation of land-uses and limited accessibility". In this research, at first theoretical literature of urban sprawl and social vulnerability were reviewed and the indicators for measuring them were chosen (13 for urban sprawl and 7 for social vulnerability) and the relevant data for Qazvin was extracted by using national census data and Geographic Information System (GIS). Then explorative factor analysis for eigenvalues bigger than 1 was conducted by using SPSS software and the indicators for sprawl were categorized into 4 factors: “density”, “configuration”, “land-use” and “accessibility” (70.22% of variance explained), and the indicators for social vulnerability were grouped in 1 factor: social vulnerability (66.9% of variance explained). Then the maps for each factor of sprawl and two main topics (sprawl and social vulnerability) were made. The correlation analysis was conducted on four factors of sprawl, social vulnerability factor (which is representative of social vulnerability altogether) and sprawl as a whole. The results show that from 4 factors of sprawl, just density factor has a significant correlation (0.801) with social vulnerability. Sprawl is also significantly (although weaker) correlated to social vulnerability (0.44). In addition, regression analysis showed that four factors of sprawl can explain 67.6% of the variance of social vulnerability. The relation between social vulnerability and density/sprawl is positive/negative, i.e. by an increase in density/decrease in sprawl, social vulnerability increases. Finally, the maps of sprawl and social vulnerability in Qazvin city districts and the map of potential districts for development are shown based on the correlation of sprawl and social vulnerability.

Spatial segregation is one of the most important challenges in urban area, which is more noticeable in merged villages into cities. During merging, these villages mostly become a problematic and isolated neighbor of the cities. True understanding of spatial segregation is essential to control the consequences of merging in these areas. The aim of this paper is to explain the factors of spatial segregation in rural-urban areas. According to the findings, elements of spatial segregation varied at different scales and from place to place. This phenomenon was affected by two factors, including: external factors (political, management, location and time) and internal factors (sociocultural, economic and physical factors) (open coding). For better factor classification and to facilitate their analysis in future researches, after open coding, internal factors were defined at the two levels using axial coding and variable, index and metrics type items were identified and completed. The results showed, that factors could overlap, contradict or reinforce each other. The dichotomy of urban and rural systems, poor planning, poverty of residents, unemployment, lack of services, low quality of public transport and incomplete infrastructures of rural-urban areas as well as lack of urban management system are the most important factors with the most repetition. These factors should be mentioned as the prior programs to eliminate spatial segregation in different rural-urban areas.

Pattern of urban expansion in relation to growth of urbanization has led to an excessive horizontal growth of cities. To deal with this phenomenon, theories and movements towards sustainable urban development were developed, such as smart growth. In this theory, physical growth and development of the city serves the community, economy and environment to enhance the quality of life. Gorgan is one of the fertile cities in north of Iran, which, besides being a political center, also is the economic center of the region. Today, the urban sprawl phenomenon in this city is clearly visible, including destruction of fertile and forest lands around the city. In this research, it is tried to use the movement to determine the priorities of endogenous development in Gorgan in order to control the urban sprawl phenomenon of this city. To this end, various urban factors were matched to the ten principles of smart growth; these factors were transformed into a maps and information layers in the GIS environment. These factors were compared and weighed by Analytic Hierarchy Process Analysis (AHP) based on their importance. Finally, areas which are susceptible to development are identified by the principles of smart growth in the city. Research method in this paper is descriptive-analytical and the resources and data of 2007 have been used. The research findings indicate that the most suitable place for development in Gorgan city based on the principles of smart growth is the north and east to the north-east of this city and other places have less priority.

Iran is an earthquake-prone country that many cities have experienced the earthquake. Magnitude of earthquake damage not only depends on physical destructions, but also one of the major dimensions of earthquake hazards is social vulnerability. In this research, after reviewing the theoretical literature, selected indicators for urban sprawl and social vulnerability were chosen and data were extracted from census data of Iran and Geographic Information System (GIS) for Qazvin. Then, using exploratory factor analysis with SPSS software, these indexes were used for urban sprawl overhead in four factors of density, configuration, user and access (with explanation of variance 70.22%) and in one factor for social vulnerability (with explanation of variance 66.9%) and their maps were prepared. It was clarified that among four factors of urban sprawl only density has significant relationship (0.801) with social vulnerability. The urban sprawl phenomenon also shows a weaker but still significant correlation (0.440) with social vulnerability. Regression analysis showed that urban sprawl factors can explain 67.6% of social vulnerability. The relationship between vulnerability and density/urban sprawl is positive/negative. It means that increasing social density /decreasing urban sprawl will lead to social vulnerability decreasing as well. At the end, urban sprawl and social vulnerability maps and potential development map of Qazvin city are presented based on relationship between these two phenomena.

Population growth in Iranian cities has increased dramatically since the Islamic Revolution, and this growth has been such that over the last two decades cities have evolved in a variety of ways: horizontal growth, vertical growth, urban sprawl, and suburbia. The city of Rasht has not been exception from the rule, and due to its role in the region and province, compared to other cities in the region, Rasht has seen poor physical growth. The most important feature of this growth was the sprawl of the city towards and around the legal boundaries of the city. Accordingly, the main purpose of the present study was to evaluate the environmental impacts of the city’s sprawl on the spatio-temporal development process. This applied research with a descriptive-analytical approach focused on documentary and field data and used the Quantitative Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM) model. The results show that various indices such as abandonment of wasteland, expansion of informal housing, housing cooperatives, integration of suburban villages, and urban development plans have contributed to the unbalanced spatial development of Rasht. RIAM matrix analysis showed that 83.87% of the area around Rasht had negative environmental effects resulting from urban sprawl and only 16.13% of environmental components had positive environmental effects.

Urban sprawl phenomenon is a multidimensional phenomenon that has many consequences, especially in social and public health aspects. The purpose of the present research is to investigate the sprawl phenomena in neighborhoods and their impact on the physical activity in Ahvaz. The research is applied in terms of purpose and in terms of method it is descriptive-analytical. Survey data in the scattered section for 116 neighborhoods were extracted from the statistical block and from land-use layer of Ahvaz city. 17 indices including population density, housing density, household density, net residential density, number of mixed land use parcels per neighborhood…. were used. The data were analyzed using ArcGIS software and DEMATEL (weighting) Vikor (ranking) techniques. In the second part (citizens' physical activity) a questionnaire was used to collect data. The statistical population is the residents of two neighborhoods that are in the first and last ranks in the sprawl form. The results show that Kianshahr neighborhood and Zeytoon Karmandi neighborhood are in the last place in terms of sprawl rate. The results of the physical activity questionnaire in these two neighborhoods showed that physical activity and sport activity of Zeytoon Karmandi neighborhood were higher than Kianshahr neighborhood. Therefore, sprawl in Ahwaz city reduces physical activity.

Automobile dependence is one of the most important symptoms of modern cities which have negative impacts on environmental, social, and economic aspects. The impacts such as injuries in accidents, air, water, and soil pollution, noise, townscape perturbation, traffic jams, and waste of time and energy are more known examples. In order to establish efficient strategies and policies to improve the situation, a complete and detailed evaluation of automobile dependence is necessary. The objective of the research is to evaluate the new town of Marne-la-Vallée in the east of Paris in France as the case study from the "automobile dependence" viewpoint. This research also confirms that the theory of "conceptual combinations of three urban fabrics" developed by Peter Newman is applied in this new town. As explained in this theory, usually in a metropolis the urban form is classified into three distinct urban fabrics: the first one is "walking urban fabric" which contains the core of the city, the second one is "transit urban fabric" which contains inner and outer urban fabrics and finally the third one "auto urban fabric" which is relatively automobile-dependent urban fabric. With a total population of 311851 in 2015, this new town has been planned as a hub of employment and residence in Parisian suburb. Marne-la-Vallée is formed by 4 sectors of (1) Porte de Paris, (2) Val Maubuée, (3) Val-de-Bussy, and (4) Val-d'Europe, which are consisted of 26 "communes". The key literature of automobile dependence is investigated in 6 dimensions: compactness/sprawl of urban fabric, accessibility to urban centers, sustainable transportation, population density, urban fabric clustering, and accessibility of green and open spaces, in each dimension a set of parameters has been defined and quantified to evaluate the state of automobile dependence related to the urban fabric. In this research, quantitative method has been used and data collection has been carried out with the assistance of the INSEE (The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) database. The findings show that the new town of Marne-la-Vallée is relatively automobile-dependent and this dependency is a dependent variable of "distance from center" (Paris), which means the further away from the center, the more the rate of automobile dependence in 6 investigated dimensions.  Finally, in a spider chart, the result of car dependence is shown separately for each of the four parts of this new town. Despite the objectives of the planners for this new town, the urban form of Marne-la-Vallée is not successful according to sustainable urban transportation and automobile dependency concept. Also, the typical principles and rules concerning other suburbs are present here and this new town has to take the necessary measures to resolve the problem of automobile dependence.

After the Industrial Revolution, advancement in industry and technology was coupled with population growth, and rural-urban immigration caused the extreme expansion of cities. Moreover, the rapid growth of urbanization in coastal areas and conflict of interest between the stakeholders has imposed extreme ecological pressure on this fragile ecosystem, which indicates the contrast between cities and coastal environments. According to records from the Statistical Centre of Iran, the coastal city of Deylam, Iran, located in Bushehr Province, has been struggling with population and immigration growth during the past six decades. Since the common expansion pattern of coastal cities is linear, where they are distributed along the coast, any attempt against the urban sprawl of coastal cities will clearly benefit the coastal ecosystem. In this research, the urban sprawl of Deylam was investigated for an approximate time span of ten years using quantitative data and a descriptive-analytical method. For this purpose, the prevalence of urban sprawl in the area under investigation was first verified using Shannon’s entropy method. Subsequently, the share of horizontal urban growth, which has faced Deylam with urban sprawl, was specified using the Holdren model. Next, the rate of horizontal growth for the period of investigation was calculated for the first time through application of the Digital Shoreline Analysis System to a study of horizontal urban growth. Eventually, the optimum size of Deylam  for the investigation period was obtained through subtraction of the share of growth calculated by the Holdren model from the total growth of the city, provided then through maps generated using ArcGIS 10. According to the calculations made using Shannon’s entropy, Deylam was expanded extensively at the beginning of the investigation period (i.e., February 16, 2005), undergoing 80.14 percent its maximum possible urban sprawl. Moreover, 62.9 percent of the urban growth of the city in the investigation period resulted from the population growth, based on the Holdren model; therefore, 37.1 percent of the total growth is responsible for the urban sprawl of the city. The results demonstrated that Deylam has experienced growth rates of 19.08 and 23.11 m/year at its northern and southern edges with standard deviations of 4.5 and 4.1, respectively. At the northern edge, the growth rate of 7.08 m/year is due to the urban sprawl, and the 12-m/year rate has resulted from the population growth.  Along the same lines at the southern edge of the city, the growth rate of 8.57 m/year is due to the urban sprawl, and the 14.54-m/year rate has resulted from the population growth. The western and eastern edges of Deylam have not developed during the investigation period, because there have been natural barriers in these parts. Since the presented framework, implemented in this study, is easy to apply, and the procedure of calculation is clear, it may provide contributions in projects involving prevention of urban sprawl.

The uneven growth, along with the spread of horizontal and scattered areas, are among the problems of today's cities. The development of the city's physical form is a process that affects all of the city's structures directly or indirectly. For this reason, if this process does not flow properly, it has many adverse effects on the city. One of the factors influencing the physical development of cities is the political actions of the government. Regarding these cases, the aim of this paper is to investigate and analyze the Urban Sprawl in Qom with an emphasis on the transformations of political divisions. The research methodology is based on the applied purpose and descriptive-analytic nature. The method of collecting library and document information. To investigate the urban dispersion phenomenon and the effect of political dividends on it, the Holdern models, the balanced distribution degree (Shannon Entropy, Gini coefficient), aggregation (moron coefficient, coefficient of Gery), dispersion coefficient, Herfindal concentration index, and population density have been used. Also, ARC GIS software has been used to map the maps. The results showed that after the expansion of the city of Qom to the provincial capital in 1375, while the existence of a dispersed urban phenomenon, the dispersed trend has been intensified so that the results of all models, especially the Holdern model, show this trend well.

Sprawl is one of the forms of expansion that has entered the literature of urban management and planning in the last half-century. Some Iranian cities have experienced this kind of expansion at a rapid pace. Babol is one of the medium-sized cities of Iran. The aim of this study is understand the pattern of the expansion of this city from 1957 to 2017 and its effect on the structural and functional changes of villages around and the Siakolamahaleh village. The statistical population of this research is the city of Babol and Siakolamahaleh village. The period of this research is from 1957 to 2017. Data gathering were done via documentary and field work technique. Data analysis demand application of GIS in order to analyze the rate, direction, and form of Babol sprawl between 1957- 2017. This is further followed by application of Holdren model regarding computation of degree of sprawl in Babol. Calculating the distribution of this city using the Holdren model shows that over the entire period from 1957 to 2017, approximately 74% of the city's horizontal growth has been driven by population growth and 26% of it has been affected by dispersion. This trend has led to the integration of villages around the city. This dispersion is connected linearly in the north and south along the axes and separated by a physical alteration of its peripheral settlements. The village of Siakolamahaleh is one of the most important villages in this area.

In this paper, explicating the characteristics and various patterns of three main concepts -urban growth, urban expansion and urban sprawl- aiming to typology from their sub-patterns in various studies of urban and regional literature have been reviewed. In other words, the aim of this paper is conceptual and spatial explanation of these words: urban growth, urban expansion and urban sprawl and their related concepts. Together with technologies and consumption styles, the form of settlements and the way human activities are organised in geographical space represent crucial research fieldsand sources of pre- occupation as far as ecological equilibria are concerned. In fact, in principle, the resource-efficiency of different settlement patterns is subject to wide variations with reference, at least, to two scarce natural resources: land resourcesand energy resources.Land consumption depends directly on the relative compactness of human settlements and on residential density; energy consumption.The question of the environmental or social costs of urban form is increasingly attracting attention in spatial policy, but scientific debate in this field is often marred by prejudices and abstract visions; empirical analyses are very rare.Urban growth topic and their patterns with the growth management policies, as important topics, affect various urban and regional plans. For example urban growth is in essence a complex subsystem; it involves actors with differing patterns of behavior at various spatial and temporal scales. It centres on understanding the dynamic interactions between the socio economic and built environments and major natural environmental impacts. Complexity in the domain of urban growth can be divided into such classes as spatial, temporal and decision-making processe. The causes of urban growth are quite similar with those of sprawl. In most of the instances they can not be discriminated since urban growth and sprawl are highly interlinked. However, it is important to realise that urban growth may be observed without the occurrence of sprawl, but sprawl must induce growth in urban area. Some of the causes, for example population growth, may result in coordinated compact growth or uncoordinated sprawled growth.Because of similarity and replacement of these concepts in urban planning literature, the aim of paper is the identification of similarities and diversities of their various patterns. The concept of pattern has special definitions in different disciplines. In geographical terms, pattern refers to a "regular arrangement or logic ordering of objects in geo-space", the manner in which a phenomenon is distributed in time and space .Space logic is called spatial pattern. In addition, a temporal pattern can be defined for changes over time. The research main method is a combination of attributive methods and explanatory analysis methods which based on explanation of topic literature and comparative comparison of global studies. Research findings show that the creation of clear line among these three concepts and their sub-patterns is very difficult and there is no consensus between professionals. Finally, after investigating ten theories and extracting of twelve specific patterns, the current paper presents a special Urban Pattern Typology (UPT) in three sections including: conceptual model, relative share and spatial sphere.

In the twenty-first century, the problem of the form and shape or how the city grows in space, consistent with the city's sustainability teachings, is one of the main concerns of urban experts and scientists. This concern in the form of urban dispersal growth has emerged in many cities as a major problem, and Tehran has not escaped this problem. Therefore, the present study attempts to prioritize influential and influential forces during the ten-year period by examining the pattern of growth in Tehran's 22nd district. The identification of the region's growth pattern was carried out using the Shannon Entropy and Hellendron model, and the data of prioritization and identification of effective and influential forces were analyzed using the Analytic Network Processand (ANP) and structural analysis model. Based on the obtained results, Shannon entropy model, district 22, has been scattered over 10 years. Based on the Heldron model, the effect of physical development of the region's growth was more than its population growth. Also, the final results of prioritization show that "land price increase" and "independence in decision making (public / private)" and "bourgeoisie and land market" are more important than other parameters. In this regard, the influential factors of the dispersed growth of Tehran's district 22 include "reduced physical activity", "soil degradation", "increased fuel and energy consumption", "pollution", "destruction of agricultural land", "the destruction of the ecosystem And wildlife","rise in temperature".

Urbanism rapidly expansion and development during last four decades has caused spreading of the physical space of cities and destruction of surrounding lands while most of them are high quality agricultural lands and gardens. The urban sprawl or low density development of cities has been one of the main urban debates because many cities have faced with its negative impacts. The term of “urban sprawl” is highly politicized, and almost has negative connotations. It is criticized for causing environmental degradation, intensifying segregation, undermining the vitality of existing urban areas and attacked on aesthetic grounds. This term has also become a rallying cry for managing urban growth. Iranian cities also have experienced this phenomenon and many researches have been conducted in this field in last few decades. This term has translated to horizontal urban expansion and uncontrolled growth in Persian language. Generally, urban sprawl refers to uncontrolled and disheveled development of suburbs. Webster’s dictionary has defined sprawl as disheveled urban development. During the last decades, rapid peace of urbanization has led to physical development of cities and their surrounding areas and resulting in destruction fertile agricultural lands. The major consequences of urban sprawl include inflated infrastructure and public service costs, energy inefficiency, spatial disparity in wealth between cities and suburbs, alteration of ecosystems patterns and processes, loss of farmlands and open spaces, increase in temperature, increase in fossil fuel consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases, reduce in water quality and quantity, and more unpleasant and monotonous suburban landscapes. The Gradual expansion of city to agricultural and orchards lands has led to many environmental impacts. One of the major problem of Iranian cities is urban sprawl and its negative impacts such as development of informal settlements, deterioration of agricultural land, overpopulation in the cities, inability to meet some of the services and in cities, disruption of physical tissue, environmental problems, especially pollution and the chaotic urban landscape. Assessing the city development process and understanding of land use changes patterns are essential to appropriate planning. This paper aimed to evaluate city sprawl and its impact on land use changes based on remote sensing and GIS techniques. Data have collected using documentary and field studies. Landsat TM satellite images for the years 1984, and 2012 were obtained from United States Geology Survey (USGS) and were utilized in this paper. Supervised classification fuzzy methods based on the severity of compliance was used to classification and changes of land use were analyzed using cross-tab model. The urban sprawl over the period of 1984 to 2012 was determined using Shannon’s entropy and Holdren’s model along with GIS tools. Shannon’s entropy is one of the commonly used and effective techniques for monitoring and measuring of urban sprawl. CA-Markov Model as a combined mode was used to simulate urban growth for future 10 years. The analysis of LULC changes has revealed that from 1984 to 2012, the built-up area has increased by greater than 6.401 hectares that is more than 43 percent. To analyze the urban sprawl, we need to demographic data and built up area. Population data is acquired from the Statistical Center of Iran and the built up area is calculated through the classification of satellite images. Findings from analyzing urban sprawl by Holdern model revealed that population factor has greatest impacts on Karaj development over the last 28 years. This factor has neutralized hideous urban growth. The amount of Shannon’s entropy of the city was close to the maximum value (2.302), showing an increase hideous urban growth in the study period. Karaj metropolis has dramatically increased in a short time due to proximity to Tehran as well as concentration of industries and services. Factors such as natural growth of population and immigration and transforming Karaj to an industrial and commercial city are key roles in city’s growth. Metropolises have profound impacts on hinterland and lead to major transformations of surrounding area due to increased population and mutual spatial impacts and functional relationships. Until 1966, the City of Karaj had an image like garden city. However, todays this city is characterized by inappropriate neighborhoods, improper construction along Tehran and Qazvin highway, multiple scattered urban systems around the villages in the Karaj hinterland, connection of small towns to the city due to growth of immigration and the destruction of green space, transfer of fresh water to Tehran for citizens’ consumption, abandoned streams of Karaj River and intentional and unintentional drying of gardens.

Mega city-regions or Metropolitan regions- that was introduced for the first time in a Cabinet article in 1995- are becoming a dominant form of human settlements both in developed and developing countries. Despite of all contentious discussion on economic and demographic significance of metropolitan regions and so rationality of establishing a distinct structure for their effective management and governance, there are a few institutions and governmental structures for effective metropolitan planning and governance. The main questions of present paper are: A. what are the economic, social, political and environmental rationality for establishing a specific structure or process for management and governance of metropolitan regions? B. What is the most important factor for explaining rationality of regionalism in Tehran metropolitan region? According to literature review there are five arguments for explaining metropolitan regionalism: a. efficiency argument (economic rationality), b. strategic planning and effectiveness argument (planning rationality), c. democracy argument (political rationality), d. equity argument (social rationality) and, e. competitiveness argument (economic rationality). present paper argue , by referring to study of spatial and political structure of Tehran Metropolitan Region(TMR); three range of theories in metropolitan regionalism namely old regionalism, public choice and new regionalism, and also best practices in the field, that the most important argument on explaining rationality of metropolitan regionalism in TMR is arguments on enhancing policy effectiveness and creating strategic capacity dealing with regional environmental problems achieved by creating spatial strategic planning framework. Present research argues that the most challenging environmental regional problem in TMR is sprawl. For doing detail research on this aspect, main theories presenting relationship between political fragmentation and sprawl was reviewed. Research findings resulted from examination of spatial trends of regional growth in TMR confirm main sections of theoretical frameworks derived from works of known researchers in the fields. According to these theoretical frameworks, in the condition of political fragmentation, spillover growth always leaks from central and big cities (with exclusionary planning and lack of affordable housing) to unincorporated areas without growth control and cheap land available for development, the areas have great accessibility to major service centers. After a while and due to concentration of population in unincorporated area, these centers get incorporated and established municipality and growth control power. In the new established condition, spillover growth finds these new areas not desirable for development for their relative high cost and constraint on development comparing to unincorporated outer fringe. Control of this process of sprawl which works in a cyclic manner and also carrying out growth management will not be possible in the condition of political fragmentation in which there is not any body for coordinated regional spatial planning. Accordingly, the mission of any kind of regional body must be regional growth management. Therefore, metropolitan regionalism (in the meaning of establishing specific structure for metropolitan governance) in TMR is mainly explained by referring to rationality of regional growth management (guiding growth and coping with region-wide sprawl), the mission which is impossible in the condition of political and functional fragmentation.

Urban sprawl is a physical-spatial phenomenon. It is a kind of scattered, leapfrog, and low density horizontal urban growth far from urban centers and is usually followed by non mixed-use development. It can demonstrate resource and capital waste, threat to citizens’ health, environmental degradation, change city centers to deteriorated urban areas due to peripheral suburban growth pattern. The causes, patterns, consequences, costs and benefits of urban growth and sprawl, have been discussed by several researchers. However, these experts have not operated in the same way in regards the causes, patterns, costs and mechanism in this case. Most of the literature concerning urban sprawl often confuses causes, consequences, the many conditions, and spatial patterns. The theoretical question of this research is as follows: what the dimensions of urban sprawl in the historical evolution of the metropolis are; what causes urban sprawl and by what mechanism does it work. In that regard, Isfahan was chosen as a case study due to its unbridled horizontal growth in the last few decades which has had social, economic, and environmental impacts such as dissipated agricultural lands, increased air pollution and its risks to citizen’s health, increased costs of transportation, social segregation, injured historical heritages because of increasing pollutions. Moreover, Isfahan plays a prominent role in the economy of Iran. On the one hand, it has a great economic potential in tourism and mass industries, and plays a leading role in regional agricultural economics due to its fertile lands and soil. Pathology of these suburban areas, process of urban sprawl, and its mechanism in Isfahan is the purpose of this research. It seems that the highest amount of urban sprawl has occurred at the outskirts of Isfahan municipality, in regions 7 and 14. The process of this sprawl can be determined by ecological-social processes of industrial establishment in the northern peripheral areas, formation of residential settlements for laborers, impact of cooperative housing activities, natural factors (water shortage), transportation network, rural to urban migration, and formation of Isfahan’s spatial pattern by industrial-agricultural-residential function. Urban Sprawl in Isfahan has challenged spatial policy-making. The greatest degree of urban sprawl has occurred in peripheral lands along the “Dolat-Abad” road; numerous villages that are near northern Isfahan villages like “Younart”, have become neighborhoods of the city. Car dependency has increased along with the duration of daily trips within the cit. Social segregation has developed as an informal settlement of “Hadi-Gol”. This is a challenge for the whole of Isfahan city and its metropolitan areas, not just for the north of it. In terms of economic and social policy making, segregation patterns, physical separation, structural-spatial order, the urban sprawl of Isfahan affects all further spatial policy making and planning. Systemic-historical analysis was used as a method of proving the aforementioned hypothesis and exploratory factor analysis was used to distinguish the suburban areas where the most sprawl has occurred.

Urban sprawl has been one of the most important concerns of urban planners in recent decades, affected by a complex set of factors. Although this phenomenon can be seen in both developed and developing countries, but the causes and levels are different. Many social, economic and political factors have been expressed to explain his phenomenon by scholars. One of the factors caused urban sprawl can be governments and their policy decisions. This factor has had the largest portion in the expansion of this phenomenon in Iran in recent decades. In recent years, the government has decided to establish some new provinces, resulting in the new role for some cities to be new centers for the newly established provinces. Such decision may affect the process of intensive urban sprawl. This paper aims to answer the question of whether such changes can increase urban sprawl and what factors are the causes and effects. The city of Bojnourd, located in the north-east region of the country, has been selected as a case study. After the formation of Northern Khorasan Province in 2004, this city was selected to be the center of the newly established province. Since then, the population growth and expansion of the city was accelerated. The amount of the city sprawl was measured in two periods, 2004 and 2011. Using the literature review, and based on the comprehensive studies of Ewing, Torrens, Galster and Frenkel and Ashkenazi, 15 variables were selected in accordance with the research objectives, and possible access to related data and information. It should be noted that these variables for measuring sprawl are adjusted according to circumstances of Iran by some native researchers. The needed data of variables in 27 districts of the city in 2004, and 31 districts in 2011 were extracted. Using confirmatory factor analysis, four factors of the density, accessibility, mixed use and centrality were classified and analyzed. Comparing the results of two periods shows that in total, urban sprawl of Bojnourd increased, and both centrality and mixed-use factors have been the greatest impacts on the area sprawl in recent years. This was due to the distance of new constructions from downtown, as well as the scattered land uses occured. The survey of the effective factors on the spatial and physical structure of the city and changes in the two the period, before and after the centrality of the new province, shows several impacts. Among these impacts are intensive increase in immigration, growth of informal settlements, extension of government organizations, increase in governmental construction, resulting from the necessary provision of employees housing, the need to provide specialized services in the fields of commercial, industrial, healthcare and education. Furthermore, as a result of the change in the regional role of the city, excessive increase in land and housing values has also been the effective cause on physical development of the city after being as the capital of the province.

Under the current process, it seems, urbanization and physical development of cities, as twin phenomena and on a global scale, will determine the future of the world. In this regard, although in the recent years the so-called “annexation” has been more or less a growing debate among urban scholars, but there has been little effort to measure its sprawl or monitor changes over time. Referring to the existing scattered information and data, during the last one or two decades, this phenomenon in the absence of compatible urban plans has grown and provided the ground for annexation of many rural settlements into the urban and especially metropolitan centers of the country. The result is that many valuable scarce resources, particularly irrigation water and arable lands have been put under urban construction. In addition, many peripheral rural environments have been transformed from productive areas to neither city-nor village spaces. In this connection, aside from the general trends, the phenomena such as “gobbling” on the one hand and extension of the boundaries of urban areas on the other hand, have created such urban centers. This article attempts to examine the different aspects of the “annexation” and related sprawl and gobbling phenomena in Zanjan, referring to two peripheral rural settlements, namely Sayan and Gawazang. The research method has been descriptive – analytical based on mixed documentarylibrary studies and fieldwork. The findings of the study indicate that the annexation consequences resulting from the transformation of rural settlements, not only has failed to improve the living conditions of the villagers but also has paved the way for new issues in rural environments; Excessive growth of population density and immigration, inappropriate urban-like construction, environmental pollution, and perhaps above all, incorrectly changing the land use are some of these consequences.