Journal of Geography and Regional Development
Year:2019 | Volume:17 | Issue:1 (32)|Papers Count:12

Introduction: Given the expansion of urban population resulting in increased use of vehicles, fuel provision has been at the center of government activities’ attention. CNG is an environment-friendly and reasonably priced fuel which is intended to substitute liquid fossil fuels. To this end, the establishment of CNG stations alongside gas stations has been taken into account in the urban services sectors and it requires strategic planning and thinking. Undoubtedly, such a vital industry which provides the fuel for transportation and mobility plays a role of utmost importance; experts and planners of the industry must consider suitable locations for CNG and gas stations in line with fast, secure, and proper service provision. One of the most considerable issues faced by drivers involves the lack of accessible CNG and gas stations relative to the number of vehicles throughout the city. Subsequently, the identification of suitable locations for these stations can be a significant contribution to service provision...

Introduction: Such concepts as invention and innovation, creativity in all scientific fields amongst citizens, creative industries, sustainable economic elements, and green environment are criteria that supplement social welfare and increase the quality of life and urban livability. These concepts would lead to the development of a creative city through a fourfold scenario involving creative human capital, quality of life, innovation platforms, and social capital. As a result, urban creativity can be considered as a strategic approach which can influence said criteria, given the fact that cities and the quality of lives within them are affected by the ways urban affairs are viewed. In this regard, one of the most important purposes of realizing creative cities and organizing sustainable development indices are attracting and retaining the creative, skilled class of people in cities which are the main requirement of qualitative development, and the success of competing cities in the area of basic economic knowledge. Considering this perspective and the urbanization growth, the large cities of Yazd province such as Yazd city are faced with a number of issues including air pollution due to irregular urban development, population growth, the increased use of fuels, the increased industrial and mineral activities, and environmental problems. These issues highlight the need for the organization of sustainable development indices using the indices of a creative city in line with its realization. The purpose of this study is examining and prioritizing sustainable urban development and the creative city indices in the cities located in Yazd province. To this end, the components of creative city including creative human capital, quality of life, innovation contexts, and social capitals were taken into account so that a platform can be provided for the realization of creative city...

Introduction: A common pattern of rural tourism is religious tourism; it is one of the oldest and most thriving types of tourism both in the past and present all over the world. Given all the components and various types of this tourism, it has been placed at the core of world tourism due to its particular structural and functional features, occupying 26% of the whole global tourism flow. Currently, there exist 5800 registered tombs attributed to Imamzadehs (descendants of Imams). In this regard, there are 22 monuments located in 14 rural settlements surrounding Mashhad. Mashhad as the center of pilgrimage of Iran attracts millions of tourists every year (almost 28 million people in 2016, for instance). Since the goal of 84% of tourists in Mashhad is pilgrimage, the spreading of these tourists across the city would enforce the tourism structures at the region. Studies show that rural regions with religious tourist attractions have somewhat been placed at the religious tourism flow of Mashhad in the recent decade. In 2016, nearly 14. 5% of tourists in Mashhad also traveled to religious rural tourist destinations of Mashhad. Experts in the field of tourism believe that the profit generated from the tourism industry in rural regions is not exclusively limited to economic benefits which can be assessed from different angles such as improved quality of rural residents’ lives. Studies show that the growth of tourism in rural areas leads to a number of social, economic, and environmental changes and reforms within the host society...

Introduction: In a general classification, tourism patterns can be divided into two classes in terms of attractions including natural and unnatural environments. Initial assessments of tourism spatial patterns at rural regions of the province undoubtedly requires the identification of the mentioned pattern in these areas. Given the existing data, these spatial patterns can be classified into natural and religious historical tourisms in order to illustrate a more accurate image of these villages which, overall, occupy 37% of the total villages in Khorasan Razavi province (1300 villages). Considering the decline in the rural population of Khorasan Razavi and the increase in migration rates at rural regions on one hand, and the presence of tourism spatial patterns in 37% of rural spots on the other hand, a fundamental question can be posed: to what extent do the spatial patterns at rural areas play a role in rural population changes at the moment? In other words, have these two spatial patterns been able to directly influence the rural population changes of the province? Overall, to what extent have they been able to affect the growth or decline in the rural population? Subsequently, the following hypothesis can be formulated: It appears that rural tourism spatial patterns influence the growth or decline of rural population of the province...

Introduction: The city of Yasuj is one of the middle cities in the country which due to the lack of appropriate urban infrastructure has suffered problems such as traffic, noise, air pollution, lack of transparency, administrative bureaucracy, lack of parking, narrow streets, the location of passenger terminals inside and outside of the city, and so on. Moreover, it seems that ICT facilities and services in the city of Yasuj are not equally distributed among the districts, as some districts, in this case, seem to be more appropriate than others. Therefore, the present study seeks to evaluate and measure the level of electronic infrastructure in Yasuj, the impact and improvement of the quality of citizens' life, and the improvement of the performance of Yasuj municipality in the use of information communication technology infrastructure in Yasuj...

Introduction: City is one of the elements of geographic space that has been evolved over time and influenced by various natural and human factors. Urban space is part of a larger geographic space. In religious cities, urban development is largely intrinsic, and this determines its role. Mashhad is a religious city and the reason for its existence is the tomb of Imam Reza. Over time, this identity has made the function and role of the city. Spatial diversity of Mashhad is also shaped based on its identity and function. The dominance of Islamic ideology and the need to preserve and promote the position of this ideological thinking by planners, decision-makers, and urban rulers have been proposed for the development of Mashhad. The status of Mashhad as one of the main metropolises of the Iranian urban system has led to the formation and development of this city and its evolution. Identifying the forces that influence the change of geographic space and their social content is essential to discovering and analyzing the discourses that constitute these changes...

Introduction: The formation of electronic city depends on technology development. The invention of telegraph paves the way for developing actual communications and reduces time and distances. Requirements to build related infrastructures for an electronic city in developing countries and the existence of uncertainty in the environment create a barrier for forecasting future; therefore applying the traditional planning method cannot respond to the needs of society anymore. Thus, it was necessary to use future study methods such as a scenario planning in order to forecast the future. Planning includes an inclination of human to the future in order to solve related problems and create an ability to see the future clearly. One of the approaches of future study is scenario planning. Scenarios do not claim to forecast the exact future but they use the descriptive technique to anticipate events...

Introduction: The idea of livable cities is a new approach in which a comfortable urban environment is defined as a place for living, physical activities (urban facilities, infrastructure, spatial planning, etc. ), and non-physical aspects (social relationships, economic activities, etc. ). Whether living in urban or rural areas, every human being seeks to achieve desirable, satisfactory, and meaningful livelihoods which naturally requires a set of contexts and factors to enable humans make a living for themselves and their society founded on long-term welfare and comfort. Certain authors view such conditions as synonymous to livability or proper conditions for living. In general, the concept points to a set of objective features that transform a place into an environment where people would be willing to live in, both in present and future. Urban livability is concerned with aspects that play a role in increasing quality of life. Increased quality of live would, in turn, influence lifestyle and healthcare conditions, enhancing the sustainability of the built environment. One of the main causes of cities’ failure with regards to livability are their lack of identity which may be the result of the absence of many essential activities for urban vitality and enthusiasm as well as the poor quality of urban design and architecture. Gorgan is also facing issues...

Introduction: While polycentric development policies are applied to a variety of spatial scales, they are also having special interprepertation on a regional scale. Polycentric development on regional scale refers to the development of regional cluster functionality relationships of cities. Issues such as regional competitiveness, regional spatial-functional structure, and cooperation among the cities have been addresed in polycentric urban areas. Polycentic urban regions are composed of clusters of neighboring cities that are separated politically and historically, and do not illustrate a clear hierarchy of economic, political, and demographic order but they are well connected by infrastructures. In all Europe, spatial planners are deploying policies that promote the spatial, economic, and social development of such polycentric urban regions. Since the 1990s, the term of "polycentric" has attracted the attention of planners and policymakers to urban planning once again, not as an urban structure in the region, but rather as a strategic concept. Nevertheless, the planners' perspective on these areas was different. Some believed that cooperation among cities in a polycentric urban region in the form of network logic would place them along the greater monocentric city-regions. In contrast, others emphasized the strengthening of the competitiveness of each city in achieving the functional, economic, and cultural diversity of the polycentric urban region. While cooperative strategies have a stronger theoretical basis, strengthening the competitive position of each city has higher potential as excutive strategy...

Introduction: The southern coast of Caspian Sea, located between Alborz Mountain range and the Caspian Sea, is considered as the smallest climatic zone in Iran (Alijani, 2007). Factors such as the constant passage of troughs and ridges of the western waves, adjacency to the strongest high pressure center of northern hemisphere, and having been located between the largest internal body of water on the earth and the north, and the Alborz high mountains to the south have led to the formation of one of the most diverse, yet prominent climactic zones of Iran at the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. Accordingly, the highest extents of annual, seasonal, daily and even hourly precipitation of the country has been recorded in this region. Meanwhile, with its clear regional diversities and temporal precipitation changes, this zone has witnessed the most intense and durable rainfalls across the country (Mofidi, Zarin, & Karkhaneh, 2014)...

Introduction: During the last two decades, macro climatic changes in Simineh region, reductions in celestial precipitation, abundance of evapotranspiration and transpiration caused by an increase in the average temperature, and the interference of human constructive factors such as damming, agricultural activities, and unplanned and unprocessed harvesting of surface water have resulted in an environmental hazard. Therefore, numerous and acute environmental and environmental hazards are among the urgent necessities of production in Simineh region. Therefore, it seems necessary to provide solutions and appropriate strategies to prevent the decline of underground aquifers in the region, reform the model, and provide proper water management. Thus, the present study aims to identify the causes of water crisis, the threats and challenges of water scarcity, water management strategies, and the strengths and weaknesses of agricultural water management in Simineh section. We also intend to examine the strategies for improving agricultural water management in Simineh...

Introduction: The policy to transform villages into cities is a strategy to improve the quality of life in small urban settlements. Yet despite such policy making, the progress of developing services and facilities has been slow in many of these newfound cities. Moreover, demographic trends in certain areas are on the decline even prior to becoming a city. Located in Kordestan province, Bolbanabad transformed into a city in 2009. However, the degree of livability and quality of life in different physical, economic, social, and environmental dimensions are at a low level in this city. The present study seeks to provide answers to the following question: What role has the policy of transforming villages into cities played in Bolbanabad with respect to the improvement of urban livability indices?...