Spatial Capacity Assessment of Infill-development in Borojerd

Nowadays, infill-development is considered as an appropriate approach in cities facing horizontal expansion limitation as well as natural restrictions. On the one hand, this inner development is related to providing urban housing and the necessity of preserving city proper lands and its surrounding area. Many urban lands are either non-utilized or have extra-urban land use (as prison, barracks, etc.). For some lands, building-residential density has not been implemented considering land value and existing installations and equipment. This has caused cities to expand in their suburbs in a discordant and indiscriminate manner. By restricting marginal expansion and implementing persuasive densification policies, the destruction of environment and farming lands in suburbs could be prevented; besides, the use of intra-city capacities will be optimized and maximized. Consequently, by leading infill physical expansion, steps could be taken to urban sustainable development. Based on available statistics, 67 thousand hectares of urban worn-out texture has been identified of which 258 hectares lie in Borojerd. Ignoring the infill development in cities of Iran is especially obvious in Borojerd. This study aims to assess the spatial capacity for infill development in abandoned and unused land in Borojerd. This is a descriptive- analytic survey. As the result of the study showed, by considering empty, unconstructed land inside Borojerd and by estimating receivable lands, the necessity of optimized use of empty, less utilized spaces as well as abandoned lands to provide houses and expand cities through in-fill development can be understood and preferred to sporadic urban expansion in uneven, gradient land with high preparation costs.