A Study of Iranian New Towns During Pre-and Post Revolution

ABSTRACT: The present paper studies the objectives and functions of constructing the new towns before and after the revolution in Iran. Before the revolution, new towns were established based on political -bureaucratic objectives, for the operation of huge oil resources and affiliated industries, to accommodate the workforce in industrial complexes, to implement the policy of regional decentralization, to provide housing for the government employees, to attract the surplus population of large cities and to reconstruct the cities destroyed by earthquake. A type of economic and social development strategy was involved in establishing new towns. Although these towns function differently, they are mainly well-populated and active towns. After the revolution, fewer towns were planned. One of the strategies of urban development was to absorb part of the population of the overpopulated cities to provide housing to low-income groups, to accommodate employees of industrial sectors, and to decentralize anatomic and industrial sectors of large cities. Except the new town of Baharestan, which has achieved the 10-year objectives behind its construction for population and housing purposes, other towns which have merely succeeded to attract less population as they were planned, the new town have generally failed to achieve the 10-year envisaged goals and have converted into housing warehouses. At present these 17 new towns has been able to attract only 320548 persons while the three new towns of Ramin, Ramshahr, Tis, have not yet been successful to attract population

A Study of Iranian New Towns During Pre- and Post Revolution

The present paper studies the objectives and functions of constructing the new towns before and after the revolution in Iran. Before the revolution, new towns were established based on political – bureaucratic objectives, for the operation of huge oil resources and affiliated industries, to accommodate the workforce in industrial complexes, to implement the policy of regional decentralization, to provide housing for the government employees, to attract the surplus population of large cities and to reconstruct the cities destroyed by earthquake. A type of economic and social development strategy was involved in establishing new towns. Although these towns function differently, they are mainly well-populated and active towns. After the revolution, fewer towns were planned. One of the strategies of urban development was to absorb part of the population of the overpopulated cities to provide housing to low-income groups, to accommodate employees of industrial sectors, and to decentralize anatomic and industrial sectors of large cities. Except the new town of Baharestan, which has achieved the 10-year objectives behind its construction for population and housing purposes, other towns which have merely succeeded to attract less population as they were planned, the new town have generally failed to achieve the 10-year envisaged goals and have converted into housing warehouses. At present these 17 new towns has been able to attract only 320548 persons while the three new towns of Ramin, Ramshahr, Tis, have not yet been successful to attract population

Access Enhancement by Making Changes in the Route Network to Facilitate Rescue Operations in Urban Disasters

Having access to locations struck by natural environmental disasters is one of the chief necessities in urban disaster management. This paper aims to study different physical and semi-physical patterns for increasing access to different districts in a city through applying changes to the present network of routes. To attain this goal, District 6 of Tehran Municipality was selected for the case study. The technique used in this research is based on multi-criteria decision- making methods. Thus, the patterns and indices were extracted by means of AHP method, and then the indices were assigned weights. These patterns were, then, analyzed and ranked through TOPSIS, FUZZY and SAW techniques respectively. Next, the results were combined by means of Borda method. The results indicated that A4 pattern which obtained 7 maximum scores was the most efficient pattern in increasing access through changes in the network of routes. Next to it is A3 pattern which ranked second. It is, therefore, suggested that in order to increase access for rescue operation in urban disasters, parallel routes in directions of the first and second priority, east to west and north to south, must be constructed so that arterial roads in the district offer better services in normal and emergency conditions