Evaluating urban environmental quality using multi criteria decision making.

In the urban environment, the quality refers to the capacity that provides and fulfills the material and spiritual needs of inhabitants. In order to improve the quality of urban life and standard of living for their citizens, planners and managers strive to raise Urban Environmental Quality. The objective of this study is to evaluate the quality of urban environment through the spatial analysis of a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method utilizing CRITIC. This research is conducted in district 4 and district 2 of the Tabriz Metropolis Municipality. In order to determine the quality of an urban environment, air pollution, vegetation coverage, land surface temperature, production of waste, population density, noise pollution, health care per capita, green spaces per capita, recreational spaces per capita, and distance from fault lines are used. After evaluating and producing environmental quality maps in two separate districts, 10 indicators were tested for significance and a comparative evaluation of two districts was conducted in order to determine which district was in better condition based on a statistical analysis of the T-test results. In accordance with the CRITIC method, there are significant differences between averages of waste production, population density, noise pollution, distance from fault lines, Land Surface Temperature, Normalized difference vegetation index, and distance from fault lines between the two districts. It appears that recreational space, air pollution, health care per capita, and green space per capita are not meaningfully different on averages. The preparation of environmental quality maps reveals the importance of meaningful indicators at the neighborhood level in two urban districts. In both districts by strengthening the continuity of the landscape through the development of ecological corridors and an increase in per capita can contribute to the improvement of the quality of the urban environment.

The impact of the city skyline on pleasantness; state of the art and a case study.

The research deals with the effect of skylines on citizens' pleasantness. The research method is based on the respondents' judgment of the color images of the skylines. 360 citizens were asked to complete a questionnaire to express their opinions and preferences along with the reasons. Three types of nature, traditional, and contemporary skylines were identified as the dominant skylines. The results showed that people prefer the nature and the traditional skyline over the contemporary skyline. They introduced some features as peacefulness, memorability, and distinctiveness as the reasons for their choice. The people's residence place could influence their attitudes toward the skyline, and most of those living in the areas with contemporary contexts selected the skyline of their contemporary context as the favorite skyline. They did not look for the sense of peacefulness in the skyline, but they underlined attractiveness. Variables of age and gender had no effect on the preferences; however, by an increase in education level, the tendency to select the traditional and contemporary skyline increased.

Urban views and their impacts on citizens: A grounded theory study of Sanandaj city.

This research deals with urban views and their impacts on citizens, as well as to identify the factors that create and influence urban views and their impacts. The research method was adopted as a grounded theory, in which open coding, axial coding, and selective coding analysis were performed based on the Strauss and Corbin procedures. Data were collected from field studies, interviews and semi-structured questionnaires. The participants included 48 citizens and 12 experts. The researchers spent a lot of time on purposeful roaming in the city to explore the vibrant city views, and enough time was spent interviewing citizens and research samples in the city of Sanandaj. Regarding urban views, the terms in the literature became more complete in new categories included Spot View, Focal View, Continuous View, Tunnel View, Planar View, Blocked View, and Layered View. Regarding the reasons for desirability or undesirability of views, five main categories identified included Natural Elements, Visual Harmony, Spatial Proportions, Identity, and Visual Disturbance.

The Role of Urban Morphology Design on Enhancing Physical Activity and Public Health.

Along with environmental pollution, urban planning has been connected to public health. The research indicates that the quality of built environments plays an important role in reducing mental disorders and overall health. The structure and shape of the city are considered as one of the factors influencing happiness and health in urban communities and the type of the daily activities of citizens. The aim of this study was to promote physical activity in the main structure of the city via urban design in a way that the main form and morphology of the city can encourage citizens to move around and have physical activity within the city. Functional, physical, cultural-social, and perceptual-visual features are regarded as the most important and effective criteria in increasing physical activities in urban spaces, based on literature review. The environmental quality of urban spaces and their role in the physical activities of citizens in urban spaces were assessed by using the questionnaire tool and analytical network process (ANP) of structural equation modeling. Further, the space syntax method was utilized to evaluate the role of the spatial integration of urban spaces on improving physical activities. Based on the results, consideration of functional diversity, spatial flexibility and integration, security, and the aesthetic and visual quality of urban spaces plays an important role in improving the physical health of citizens in urban spaces. Further, more physical activities, including motivation for walking and the sense of public health and happiness, were observed in the streets having higher linkage and space syntax indexes with their surrounding texture.

Urban green space cooling effect in cities.

Urban green spaces are considered an appropriate way to reduce urban heat island effects and provide comfort to the nearby occupants. In addition to cooling the actual space, urban green spaces are also able to influence the surrounding area, and this phenomenon is called the urban green space cooling effect. The most important issues with regard to the cooling effects of urban green spaces are the intensity and density of the cooling, which can play a major role for urban designers and planners in dealing with urban heat island. This article reviews the latest studies that have examined the cooling effects of urban green spaces in recent years. Based on the method of evaluation of their samples, the studies are divided into three groups. The first category consists of research into a set of urban green spaces in one part of or in an entire city, mainly conducted through remote sensing and satellite maps. The second category investigates city parks or several urban parks with recognizable shapes and locations. In this section, information was mainly gathered by virtue of field observations. The third category relates to studies in which a part of urban space according to different scenarios of green space placement was modeled by simulation. The results of the present study illustrate that the highest cooling effect distance and cooling effect intensity are for large urban parks with an area of more than 10 ha; however, in addition to the area, the natural elements and qualities of the urban green spaces, as well as climate characteristics, highly inform the urban green space cooling effect.