Urban identity and Iranian new towns

Abstract

In an era when urbanization on a large scale and at a rapid pace has become a dominant trend, particularly in developing countries, the fundamental issue of urban spaces identity is always being ignored. This is an important issue in two respects. First, it refers to the weakening of the identity elements over time, coinciding with the new development; second, it regards the lack of attention to identity stimulants, and failure in using them in a figurative and semantic manner in a small-scale structure to the macro-scale of urban tissues. The relative identity crisis is particularly apparent in new towns and it is one of the obstacles to attract population into these soulless towns. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the identity of 10 new towns in Iran to achieve a conceptual-cognitive framework for reviewing the above mentioned problem. We conducted this research based on qualitative and quantitative methods and by the use of the Goeller matrix and of a qualitative survey questionnaire. Findings indicate that in terms of selected measures, the new town of Baharestan achieved the first place and the other two towns "Andisheh and Pardis" occupied the next ranks. Results indicate that among new towns under investigation, the new town of Baharestan got the highest rank because its principles of identity were inspired by the principles of the Isfahan School.