The Recreation of historical centers of cities in Iran based on tourism and integrating strategic planning and network analysis (ANP- SWOT); A case study of historical texture of Tabriz metropolis

With respect to the formation of Islamic Iranian cities, historical centers have a crucial role and are quite important. These centers have enormous potential due to their geographical locations, availability, concentration of economic problems and cultural-historical properties; but despite the positive features of the central part of the cities, their texture suffers from physical, bio-environmental, context complexity and lack of infrastructures problems. Among the ancient Iranian cities, a sample that is important in Iranian traditional urban renewal is Tabriz. The historical center of this city has precious treasures of human culture and historical monuments, which their erosion may lead to cultural and physical structure problems as well as losing the historical identity of the city. So, the foundation of recreation projects seems to be essential to keep the historical centers. Since the recreation of these centers is in the need of considerable investment, it seems that it is better to use tourism potential to encourage the private sector and support of public sector in order to do investment for the implementing such projects. Thus, the present study used an analytical descriptive approach; library and field studies, SWOT model and network analysis (ANP) to introduce approaches to the improvement of the present condition through identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of tourism in the historical center of Tabriz. Based on the obtained results of the study, WT2, ST3 and WO1 strategies have three priorities for recreating the historical context of Tabriz metropolis.