Comparative Study of City Sprawl in Three Middle Range Cities of Iran: Ardabil, Sanandaj and Kashan

Abstract
The term “urban sprawl” is often used as a synonym for undesired low-density or otherwise unplanned
urban spatial development. More often, though, sprawl is defined in terms of “undesirable” land-use
patterns—whether scattered development, leapfrog development (a type of scattered development that
assumes a mono centric city), strip or ribbon development, or continuous low-density development.
However, the precise definition, as well as its desirability, is debated. From mid of twenty century, urban
sprawl has become as a main subject and challenge in spatial policy making agenda of most of
governments. In this kind of urban expansion, land as a main source of development is utilized in a higher
rate than population growth. Such kinds of development, for lack of mixed land use, lack of centrality and
inefficiency in accessibility, etc. leads to wasting non-recyclable resources and energies (resources like
land for developments and energy for center-periphery commuting) on the one hand, and polluting
environment as their impacts on the other hand. However, intensity and substance and physical forms of
urban Sprawl would be different dependent upon levels of economic and social development of countries
and their planning system. Major factors which caused the urban sprawl in Iran were parallel with starting
exogenous development process in the country. Rapid urbanization fueled by motorization, rapid growth
of population and rural –urban immigration, central government ineffective land policy, land speculation,
etc. prevent from infill development and led to land uselessness within cities as well as increasing urban
sprawl in suburbs. All these processes led to a massive transformation of agricultural land into urban landuses
all over the country and provided some evidences that urban is taking place as a pattern of
development. So, it seems that the mentioned pattern in our country is different from its origins (in
American cities). Although the urban sprawl began four decades ago in Iran, but has yet to be empirically
measured or characterized. Present paper aims at defining and measuring the characteristics of urban
sprawl in three middle range Iranian cities according to a preferred theoretical framework inferred from
literature review. In case studies, the authors have used GIS based data and methods like factor analysis
and SPSS for measuring their urban development characteristics and defining the areas that show higher
indices of sprawl development. Research findings indicate that lack of centrality and low level of mixed
land use are the main factors defining urban sprawl development in the case studies. This is in contrast
with western countries' situation in which low density development is the main characteristic of sprawl.
The findings show that the highest rate of urban sprawl is observed in the areas of Sanandadj and Ardabil
that were developed and affected directly by the governmental land policies.