Investing the Effects of Globalization on Physical Structure of Islamic Cities (Case Study: Isfahan Megalopolis)

Globalization is one of the phenomena that human society currently has been faced. The size and the scope of this phenomenon is so broad that it encompasses all aspects of life.Globalization is affected important tools such as information communication technologies, services and applications related to the physical structure of many cities in the world. This quantitative–analytical study was used library studies for gathering data. Since, the objective of this study is to examine the impact of globalization on the physical structure of Isfahan as Islamic city. This study has been used share changing model and analyzing available statistics to consider changes made in the physical structure of Isfahan city in three major aspects such as residential occupancy, commercial land use, and transport network land use on the basis of the globalization process. The results of this study showed that the process of globalization has changed the physical structure of Isfahan city. for example, residential occupancy move towards high tall building (3 and 4 floors); commercial land use has been leading to the large chain stores such as Refah stores and Hyper Star stores caused to save money and time; and transport network land use has been leading to a network of two-floor highways and expressways. Hence, it can be said that globalization has caused a lot of changes in the physical spaces of Esfahan and these changes will be continued.