Sociology and Anthropology 2(2): 41-45, 2014 http://www.hrpub.org
DOI: 10.13189/sa.2014.020203
Recreating a Vibrant City Center in Response Urban
Environments by Using AHP Model
(Case Study: Qazvin City Historical Context in Iran)
MohammadReza Sadeghi Moghadam
1,*
, Negin Mousavi
1
, Gelare Solgi
1
, Salameh Azimi
2
1
Department of urban planning, Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran
2
Department of Industrial Engineering, Qazvin Branch, Islamic Azad University, Qazvin. Iran
*Corresponding Author: m.sadeghi62@gmail.com
Copyright © 2014 Horizon Research Publishing All rights reserved.
Abstract In this age of transition from decades of
turmoil and instability in urban areas, urban centers validate
their prestige and importance as a commercial, cultural and
recreational center. Urban centers as the housing and shelter
for millions of people and visitors will facilitate and improve
human interaction. Since the city is very complex, existence
and attendance of cycles of declining and wane, reform and
reconstruction are obvious. At the best form, appearance of a
city will be realized from its center & heart. Recently, in
western countries, having vibrant and dynamic urban centers
has caught the attention of many scholars. Actually creating
an environment where social interaction is high and gives
people a sense of vitality. On the other hand, to include such
dynamism in context of an urban center, it needs adequate
respondents. Therefore, in this paper, at firs the criteria for
responsive environments, characters of a vibrant city center
and the main & common features between them is
introduced, using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP),
criteria are weighted and prioritized. The results show that,
sustaining the above criteria and codifying proposed policies
and strategies, helps to recreate the historic core of Qazvin
city.
Keywords Vibrant city center, Responsive
environments, Socialization, AHP, Qazvin
1. Introduction
In Since the beginning of modern civilization, character of
cities was distinguished by difference between private and
public areas. The all times, it can be said that Greece rings
were the best-known public spaces, public squares where the
town meetings, public gatherings and places for ceremonies
& feasts were considered, indeed, playing role as an
integrated platform for social life in the city. In the middle
ages, public spaces were still a main set to reveal public life.
A few centuries later, during the industrial revolution, urban
regions growth developed implementation of urban planning
in practice, as cities grew by developing social networks [1].
Urban space is not just a physical concept, but also
contains citizen interactions and civic engagements. It means
that public spaces bring an imagination for city fabric where
is a place of establishing urban activities or an incidence of
social interactions [2].
In the new centuries, sustainable development, vitality,
and competitiveness, are some of the terms that direct
planning and urban development. As a result, city centers are
faced with many challenges simultaneously. Urban growth,
demographic changes, and efforts to improve the quality of
life, all of these areas are contiguous. In fact, high population
density and citizens living conditions determines success or
failure of city. So studying the quality of urban life is one of
the most effective ways to measure the urban
competitiveness. Also, people fleeing from rural areas to
growing urban centers for improving appropriate living
conditions is needed for maintaining this development on the
right track [1].
Successive public places are characterized by people's
attendance, in this way characters of such spaces are
corroborated inly. Basically the common spaces are to be
used when necessary. People should take advantage of these
environments while they can choose other spaces for use.
Such spaces should be full of crowd and dynamic. The
solution is that people gather what they are interested, around
and inside themselves [3].
A dynamic environment can be supposed as a place where
human presence is clearly seen and public space as a context
of social interactions, have enough attraction for the
selection of the people. Such space has standard criteria for
permeability, sense of place, flexibility, visual proportions,
organizing structure and etc. that during this research, using
the opinions of planning and designing experts and applying
analytical process model offers appropriate solutions for
recreating of these features at environment (the historic core
of Qazvin city).