Explaining the Sustainable Urban Community Structural Criteria

Document Type : Research Article

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Abstract

Population is increasing in cities, as well as a strong trend towards urbanization that has a variety of reasons. Focusing on more services in cities is a phenomenon which large cities in developing countries are facing. On the other hand, due to the increase in global warming and climate change, thinkers and theorists have sought many different solutions, one of which is the theory of "sustainable development". For years, the theory had further emphasized on the economic needs and environmental limitations, but it has played a more important role in the local and indigenous aspects with the emergence of the slogan: "think globally, act locally", in the past decade. Although the climate change phenomenon has existed from the past till now and will continue in the future, human activities and unsustainable developments in the short term has intensified it in the way that it has had adverse effects on human life .These effects has become ever more severe and more diverse. It should be noted that if no attention will be given to the solutions to deal with this issue, the most important human achievements -civilization and urbanization - may be destroyed. For this purpose, we must start from the smallest part of the city, which are indeed communities. To solve problems and avoid damages faced by the communities, it is necessary to discuss them further as a main element of cities in the form of sustainability. Community is the main pillar of the urban body. Balance of social life in cities depends on the preservation of the communities. During the twentieth century, the ideal of residential-centered community has been offered in many modern theories and has been widely accepted for solving various urban problems such as management, social and human relations, health and welfare issues and aspects of meaning and identity. Moreover, discussions on sustainable development have led to the proposal of different scale implementation in cities (international, national, regional-provincial, district, municipal, and community scales, as well as neighborhood units, site, and architecture scale). In addition, the concept of sustainable urban development has been considered as a scientific topic in all societies in recent decades, to which much of the literature has been allocated on urban development. Although many definitions have been presented on the concept of sustainable development at the macro level, its concept is still not clear with certainty at the local scale, while urban communities are significantly important, and their strengths or weaknesses can be taken into account for the entire city for different aspects so that its performance can be improved. Following the extensive discussions on sustainable development, a particular attention was also given to the sustainable urban communities. Since urban communities consume a great amount of energy, it is necessary to give more attentions to the ways to sustain these areas. Some different ideas have been proposed about the concept of sustainability at the local scale, which have resulted in different components. To access the social components, some give priority to people and society. Some emphasize on the appearance features of the neighborhood, and thus value physical components. Some experts, who focus on the comfort and security in the accesses, highlight more the transport and communication components; and others point out the discussions on public participation in issues related to community and how to manage it, which are placed in the area of political components.It is important to note that any definitions of sustainable neighborhoods and details on how to review and provide any kinds of components by each researcher are resulted from the type of environment, culture, climate and such parameters, which are specific to each city or country, and vary by geographic locality. It is true that the concept of sustainable neighborhoods has been viewed from a certain angles by the researchers and theorists of urban development who consider a particular organization for it, but giving attention to humans, their different needs, and how to meet them along with environmental protection is a common point to all ideas. The main argument of this paper is the two issues of sustainability and urban communities, as well as how to link them to each other and finally the criteria to create a sustainable community will be examined. To reach these criteria, analytic-deductive method is used.

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