Sustainable city

Sustainable city

Evaluating the Physical Resilience of Dysfunctional Urban Neighborhoods: A case study of District 12, Tehran

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
hamid reza Tamjidi
Amideleslam saghatoleslami
Seyed Muslim Seyed Al Hussein
hadi Sarwari
Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran, Mashhad, Iran
10.22034/jsc.2025.496261.1823
Abstract
A B S T R A C T
One of the most significant issues in dilapidated urban contexts is physical security during a crisis. Therefore, resilience can significantly reduce damage by increasing environmental capabilities, creating preparedness, adaptive and coping capacities, and reducing the negative effects of natural and artificial hazards. The present study aims to identify the root causes of physical vulnerability in District 12 of Tehran and seeks to increase the resilience of the region. The present study, with an applied nature, has analyzed the effects of effective variables on physical resilience in the statistical population of 13 neighborhoods in the region. The data source under study is the Census of the Statistics Center, the detailed plan of the Renovation and Municipality Organization. After selecting the indicators using the consensus of experts, 10 indicators have been selected to achieve the research objectives. After extracting the importance of each indicator using the ANP method, physical resilience was obtained using the overlay of layers and the (MCDM) method in the GIS software environment, and then the final resilience was extracted through the geometric mean. The geographic regression (GWR) method was also used to analyze the factors affecting ultimate resilience. The findings indicate that urban blighted neighborhoods have much lower physical resilience than other urban contexts. Also, strength, distance from the fire station, and access to public green spaces play a decisive role in resilience. Understanding the vulnerability of blighted contexts can help improve resilience and address the problem of blighted urban contexts against earthquakes.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Physical resilience refers to the capabilities of all physical components of a city in the four stages of resilience, namely readiness, absorption, self-organization, and adaptation. There are many criteria related to physical resilience, such as connecting different parts of the urban structure and infrastructure, building strength, adaptive capacity, recovery, and many others. In addition to structural and physical factors, other factors also affect a city's resilience as a complex system in its level of resilience against earthquakes. One of the most important factors is the neighborhood's structure, namely new or dilapidated. Dilapidated textures in Iran have 3 specific characteristics, including instability, meaning the lack of necessary strength, impermeability, meaning the lack of the possibility of providing appropriate services (supply and infrastructure) in critical conditions, and smallness, meaning small without parts and dimensions of real estate. These characteristics make dilapidated textures much more vulnerable to earthquakes than mobile urban textures.
 
Methodology
The present research is of an applied type that, by examining the level of resilience and vulnerability of neighborhoods with dilapidated textures, identifies the neighborhood's strengths and weaknesses according to the neighborhood's inherent characteristics and paves the way for planning. The nature of the research is also analytical, in which the findings are analyzed and evaluated according to the conditions of the neighborhood. Information and data were collected for the research through documents and fieldwork. Previous studies and books initially examined and scrutinized resilience in inefficient and dilapidated structures, especially physical resilience. The analysis of the extracted data within the research's statistical scope was combined to reach the research questions. The weights of the indicators and variables were extracted using the ANP ranking model. After extracting the weights, the next stage is to add them to the data. At this stage, the SHP information layers of each sub-index related to each neighborhood were prepared in the GIS software environment. With the data standardization, the data integration and indicator weighting stage was carried out in GIS software, and with the help of the MCDM multi-criteria decision-making analytical method. Then, the vulnerability level of the entire region and its 13 neighborhoods was obtained by integrating and overlaying the layers. The Raster Calculator technique was used to integrate and extract the final map. The Natural Breaks technique was also used to classify the resilience map. Then, the Geographic Weighted Regression (GWR) method was used to examine the effects of each indicator and sub-indicator on the results obtained.
 
Results and discussion
The physical resilience status of the neighborhoods of region 12 is completely different from each other; these different results are seen in the resilience of the three indicators (sustainability, redundancy, flexibility). In the sustainability index, which is known as internal indicators, 3 neighborhoods (Pamnar, Bazaar, Ferdowsi) have the highest resilience, and neighborhoods (Harandi, Darvaze Shemiran, Sanglaj) have the lowest resilience and the highest vulnerability in the total of the sustainability sub-indices (type of skeleton and building materials, age of the building, area of ​​residential units, number of floors of residential units). These results are different in the resilience map of the redundancy index, and results indicate that neighborhoods (Abshar, Baharestan, Bazaar) have high resilience, and neighborhoods (Khayyam, Kausar, and Takhti) have low resilience. Also, the results of the resilience index with the sub-indices as access to health services, access to green spaces, and access to the 12+ road network show that neighborhoods (Abshar, Harandi) have very high resilience, and neighborhoods (Baharestan, Ferdowsi, Iran, Darvazeh Shemiran, and Khayyam) have low resilience. A notable point in the results is that the Abshar neighborhood, despite its poor resilience in the sustainability index, has achieved an acceptable status in the resilience index. Harandi neighborhood is also among the neighborhoods with a very poor status in the sustainability index and a completely appropriate status in the flexibility index. Furthermore, Darvazeh Shemiran neighborhood shows an almost identical status in all 3 indicators. These differences indicate the inherent differences between the neighborhoods and the availability of the sub-indicators studied. Paying attention to these small differences can lead a neighborhood towards resilience or vulnerability. Therefore, in resilience studies, the micro-characteristics of the neighborhoods should be examined separately, and great care should be taken in planning and allocating facilities and credits.
 
Conclusion
The combination of information obtained from the total of 10 sub-indicators under study shows a final resilience map in which the Pamenar and Bazaar neighborhoods, despite their long history, along with renovation and reconstruction activities, have been able to achieve an acceptable level of resilience compared to other neighborhoods in District 12. Pamenar neighborhood, located on Pamenar Street, has a long history dating back to 1953. This neighborhood is considered one of the lower neighborhoods of Tehran in socio-economic divisions, with old buildings such as the Mirza Saleh Mosque and School, Pamenar Bath, Shahabadi Mosque, and Ruhollah Imamzadeh. The Abshar and Harandi neighborhoods, with a total population of 265,000, have the lowest level of resilience and the highest vulnerability to earthquake hazards among other neighborhoods. This could be due to the high presence of dilapidated structures in this area, which have not been included in renovation and reconstruction programs. This is a warning sign for this neighborhood and other vulnerable neighborhoods such as Sanglaj, Takhti, and Darvaze Shemiran, which could become even more critical over time.
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
 
Acknowledgments
 We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.
Keywords
Resilience
Vulnerability
Urban Neighborhoods
Earthquake
Region 12
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Sustainable city
Volume 8, Issue 1
Spring 2025
Pages 37-58