Investigating Sustainability in Traditional Neighborhood of Iran The evolution of neighborhoods of Urmia in the ۲۰th century

Traditional neighborhoods in Iranian cities before modernization has a structure with sustainable characteristics in social aspects. Historical neighborhoods in the city of Urmia were a clear example of Iranian cities that lost their human-oriented structure and turned into disjointed and socially unsustainable neighborhoods for inhabitants. This article aims to analyze the hierarchy of accessibility in the classification system of access to urban areas in the ۱۹th century and to compare this hierarchy with the ۲۰th century. In this research, by introducing and describing the elements of the old city, which includes the rampart around the city, the organic passages of the city, the city's neighborhoods, and the neighborhood centers, it examines the sustainability of the urban hierarchy in this period. In these analyses, we reach a classified system that covered most of the cities of the ۱۹th century; private, semi-private, semi-public, and public spaces that can be seen in the interconnected set of these hierarchies. It has been discussed by analyzing the classification system of urban access in the next period when street paving with checkered alleys inside them became the order of business in urban planning and more or less continues until now. By comparing the urban structure in these two rounds, the factors affecting the sustainability of these neighborhoods are identified. In this research, to obtain historical information related to the city of Urmia, library studies of historical documents and field observations were used, and also relevant maps were used to analyze the historical and contemporary context of the neighborhoods. Finally, it was found that the introversion of the neighborhoods, respect for privacy and communication hierarchy, the physical and social diversity of the neighborhood, different levels of social interactions, and the existence of identity factors in the neighborhoods were among the most important factors in achieving social sustainability in these neighborhoods.

Keywords:

Sustainability , Neighborhoods , Iran , Urban Hierarchy , Modernization