Urban areas

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the spatial justice in different dimensions (physical, social, economic, and environmental) in order to have balance regarding four regions of Shahriyar city. The spatial justice approach in a city is used for controlling and reducing the physical-spatial inequalities as well as a fair distribution of municipal services and facilities in different areas of the city. In this study, the spatial justice of four areas of Shahriyar city was evaluated with 13 criteria and 27 indicators. This study was carried out through exploratory-analytical research method that used two models of the analytic hierarchy and the shortest distance. Eventually, the final map of different access levels was drawn through combining fuzzy logic with these two models. The findings and obtained results through Topsis model indicated that area 1 of Shahriyar city had the highest rank in social, economic, physical, and environmental indicators. However, the area 3 had unfavorable economic and physical conditions, and area 2 had unfavorable environmental conditions. Having integrated Topsis and Fuzzy models, it was shown that areas 1 and 2 were considered as privileged regions and areas 3 and 4 were respectively determined as the semi-privileged and nonprivileged regions. Moreover, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method indicated that areas 1 and 4 had better conditions and areas 3 and 2 are respectively on the lower levels. Finally, after combining the results of fuzzy and AHP models, the final map was designed. It showed that the areas 1 and 4 were privileged regions; areas 3 and 4 were respectively the semi-privileged and underprivileged regions of the Shahriyar city. Generally, the results of this study indicated that the physical-spatial development of Shahriyar city was unbalanced and did not meet the conditions of equity-based city.

There is a consensus among housing experts and policy makers that there are not enough resources for government alone to address growing urban housing challenges in many developing countries. Consequently, a paradigm shift from government provision to partnerships between the public and private sectors is advocated. This study exامینed the prospects and challenges of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in housing provision in Ogun State Southwest Nigeria. Data were derived from the review of official records and interview enquires. Findings show that Public-Private Partnership in housing in the study area is based on the joint venture approach between government agencies and corporate commercial private property developers. So far, attention has been on the provision of housing for high-income earners, while the challenges of insufficient numbers of housing units and housing affordability among low-income earners have not been addressed. The key challenges militating against Public-Private Partnership in housing are inadequate supply of land by government and housing finance, high cost of building materials, graft as well as the exclusion of low-income people from the PPPs. Given the huge housing supply deficit in Ogun State, it is argued that the future success of PPP is contingent upon addressing these challenges and the involvement of organizations that represent low-income people in the institutional framework of the PPPs.

Sustainability is observed in many aspects and elements of traditional Iranian architecture, planner and landscape architecture, and this method was used to solve many problems for many countries. The aim of this article is to achieve a sustainable approach in planning urban renewal projects to identify the relationship between urban design considerations and the sustainable development objectives. An experimental model of stability testing of the modernization projects in three economic, environmental and social dimensions was evaluated in District 11, Municipality in Mashhad. In this article, the questionnaire used to collect data from sample size of 380 and various statistical analyses such as Independent T-test, Pearson correlation, multiple regression and path analysis were used. The findings show that the variables in all three "economic", "social" and "environmental" dimensions had related rate of sustainability of urban renewal projects. The variables, Built Environment and social factors were more effective in increasing the sustainability of urban renewal projects.

Khorasan Razavi Province suffers from the most critical groundwater resources in Iran, i.e. the groundwater decline has reached 1 m; 34 out of 37 water plains are banned in Khorasan Razavi Province. Recently, Mashhad plain has been fighting with the crisis of drought and water scarcity. Illegal harvesting from groundwater resources and the warming trend caused by change in climate have exacerbated the crisis. Comprehensive water resources management, assuming the complicated nature of water-related issues, rapid growth of population, water requirement for a variety of purposes, and limited water resources, requires novel methods to stack up technical, economic, environmental, social, and logical perspectives in an integrated forum. One of the tools for comprehensive water resources management is utilizing hydro-economic models to simulate the present status of drainage basins and evaluate the impacts of different scenarios and policies. The current study used a hydro-economic model to simulate the hydrological status of Mashhad plain and evaluate the impacts of different scenarios. Then, the agent-based model (ABM) was used in order to reach an agreement with stakeholders on executing different conservation scenarios. The hydro-economic model results revealed that reducing the water demand of the agricultural sector and, as a result, surface and groundwater consumption is possible through following adaptation scenarios. Implementing various adaptation scenarios may alter the present cultivation pattern. Moreover, the ABM results showed a significant difference between the volume of available water, due to the execution of strategies, and water demand, bringing about the lack of farmers’ cooperation regarding the implementation of conservation scenarios. However, through applying some incentive policies, a number of representative farmers may agree to pursue adaptation scenarios.