Study of Indicators Affecting Informal Settlements in Sanandaj

As the urban development has overtaken the capacity and potentials of the governments and municipalities in extending the infrastructures and providing employment, informal settlements are quickly and irregularly increasing. Studies performed on the informal settlements in Sanandaj (Kurdistan province) suggest that the majority of immigrations to the suburban areas of Sanandaj are from rural areas and are resulted from economical and security concerns (during the imposed war of Iraq against Iran and insecurities within the province). Studies on comprehensive and detailed plans of Sanandaj show that no better position has been considered for the low-income urban classes. In other words, they are missed in the studies. Also the demands of these classes for housing and the way these demands are supposed to be fulfilled have not been studied in the urban development plans. Therefore, one of the reasons that drive these low-income classes to the suburban areas of the cities and their settlement outside the area is attributed to the lack of attention to the demand for housing of these classes in developing formal plans.
In addition to determining the most important structural problems in the informal settlements of Sanandaj, using correlation matrix, the rate of correlation between indices has been studied in this paper and the results suggest that the first important problem in suburban areas of Sanandaj is the usage of high amounts of low quality and inordinate materials in the construction of the buildings. The second important problem is low average area of residential parcels. Finally in this paper, the informal housing area of Sanandaj is assessed, using SWOT technique.