Identify Infill Development Capacities in order to Achieve Urban Smart Growth (Case study: Region 1 of Yazd City)

Identify Infill Development Capacities in order to Achieve Urban Smart Growth (Case study: Region 1 of Yazd City)

Extended Abstract

Introduction

The increase in problems that caused by the uncontrolled growth of cities have forced urban researchers and managers to tackle and solve urban problems. One of the most effective ways to reduce these issues, is urban smart growth that one of its important principles, is infill development. This principle emphasizes on using and benefiting of cities internal capacity, such as development on abandoned land and vacant land within the existing texture of cities, redevelopment of buildings and sites. The main purpose of this research is to identify capacities of infill development in the region1 of Yazd city. It can be said that theories of urban smart growth and infill development (as an independent theory and one of the principles of urban smart growth) have been the basis of this study. Urban smart growth seeks to use urban spaces to compactness and prevent urban growth. Due to the fact that the city of Yazd has expanded horizontally and with a sprawl phenomenon, the use of infill development theory can take advantage of the city's internal capacities and prevent the city's uncontrolled expansion, and the benefits of this development can be achieved with the goal of implementation of urban smart growth.

Methodology

This research in terms of goal is an applied one and in view point of the research method is descriptive – analytical and the extraction of appropriate criteria is based on library resources and documents. At first, the effective parameters and criteria were selected by reviewing the articles related to infill development and according to the characteristics of the study context. Then, by completing the questionnaire by 15 experts and specialists, the degree of preference of these criteria against each other was assessed and with the help of SWARA technique in EXCEL software, the weight of each criterion was obtained. Afterwards, the appropriate layers were prepared in ARCGIS environment and in order to normalize the layers and combine them, the Simple Additive Weighting method (SAW) which was implemented in ARCGIS environment was used. In this method, the weight obtained from SWARA technique was multiplied by the criteria and finally the textures that are suitable for infill development were identified.



Results and discussion

The main purpose of this research is to identify capacities of infill development in the region1 of Yazd city. At first, the area and location of vacant lands were considered as the main priority of development then in order to identify the development capacities of the constructed areas, the effective criteria on infill and smart growth development were selected. Next by determining the priority of these criteria (land use diversity, floor, building age, construction quality, ownership, structure, particle size distribution, access to the street network, access to green space, access to educational land use, access to health care land use, access to business land use, access to religious land use, access to facilities land use), the weight of each criterion was obtained relative to each other. Then, the layers were prepared in the ARCGIS environment and zoned by using of the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method that implemented in the ARCGIS environment. Textures that are suitable for infill development were identified and prioritized. The priorities are calculated as the first priority is 328 hectares, the second priority is 305 hectares, the third priority is 320 hectares and the fourth priority is 118 hectares. The first priority are the land use and parcels that have low floors, low quality, high antiquity, public and state ownership, greater access to service land uses and the street network.



Conclusion

By examining the land use of Yazd city, it was found that due to the sprawl and growth of the city and lack of proper management, many lands in the city are undeveloped and without construction, which can be considered as vacant lands as one of the important priorities in integrated growth and infill development. In fact, in the city of Yazd, due to the large number of vacant lands, development should be focused on these areas, and also with solutions such as increasing taxes or creating incentives to accelerate the process of their development. In region 1 of Yazd city, similar to other parts of it, as we go from the central parts to the fringe of the city, vacant and unused lands will increase. Thus, vacant lands must first be developed in order to population growth and per capita services. However, it is important to note that attention to vacant lands should not deter urban management from paying attention to worn-out central textures or textures that are more conducive to accessing services and are more economically viable. Therefore, the research findings indicated that this region of Yazd city has suitable capacities for infill development as one of the principles of urban smart growth and the research hypothesis is confirmed.



Keywords: Smart growth, Infill development, Multi-criteria decision-making techniques, Yazd city.