Forecasting the Expansion of Informal Settlements in Shahr Khoi with a Scenario Writing Approach

Introduction :

Today, one of the most important challenges facing us is the issue of housing and informal settlements. The issue of informal settlement is a human challenge whose consequences are still visible in the developing world. Besides being a geographical, urban, and architectural phenomenon, informal settlements are also seriously considered a social phenomenon. Informal settlement is generally defined as the increasing, unauthorized, and self-organized production of new urban neighborhoods. These settlements have often become a place to attract migrants from the countryside to the city, provide cheap housing for more than a billion people, and create the basic infrastructure of neighborhoods in growing cities.

The following article is practical in terms of purpose and descriptive and analytical in nature. The required data and information were also completed using forecasting methods and the use of questionnaire tools and interviews with specialists and experts. The statistical population in this article is the experts, specialists, and experts related to the research topic and the geographical area of the research is the middle city of Andam Khoi. Experts have been selected from the following fields: academic and scientific community experts with the specialized field of urban planning and housing, managers and experts active in the field of urban management, managers and executive agents involved in urban issues (municipality and road and urban development department) ). In this research, the Delphi technique was used to collect data, and the structural analysis method was used to investigate and identify influencing factors and variables. The key factors were also identified using Mic Mac software, and finally, the scenario planning method was used using Scenario Wizard software to compile and analyze probable and desirable scenarios.

The Delphi technique was used to identify the primary factors affecting the future trend of informal settlements in Khoy city. For this purpose, descriptive questionnaires were designed and provided to the relevant experts, then the received questionnaires were examined, and as a result, 72 factors were identified in 6 areas (economic, social and cultural, environmental, physical and physical, management and policies of city managers, macro-provincial and national policies) were identified. In the next round of the Delphi technique, the variables affecting the future status of the informal settlements in Khoy City were entered into the matrix of mutual effects to determine the intensity of their influence on each other and the future status of the expansion of informal settlements in Khoy City. The influence of factors on each other was measured from zero to three. The number zero represents the lack of influence of the factors on each other, the number one represents the weak influence of the variables on each other, the number two represents the medium influence of the factors on each other, and the number three represents the high influence of the factors on each other. After determining the amount and intensity of the influence of the variables, the matrix of structural effects was entered into the MikMak software to express the key variables. The dimensions of this matrix are 72 x 72 and its degree of filling is 60%, which means that the variables have influenced each other more than 60%. Out of the total of 5184 possible and probable relationships in this matrix, 2060 are zero ratios, 1936 are one ratio, 870 are two ratios, and 310 are three ratios.

This article aims to investigate the future status of informal settlements in the middle city of Andam Khoi with a foresight approach. The ever-increasing expansion of marginalization and informal settlements around the city of Khoy the contagion of the problems of these areas into the city of Khoy and the need to provide factors influencing the growth and expansion of these areas have led to this research. In this research, managers’ Delphi was used to identify the primary factors affecting the future growth and expansion of informal settlements in Shahr Khoi. In the first round, descriptive questionnaires were designed with open questions, in these questionnaires, experts were asked to identify the effective and involved factors in the studied system, after reviewing the questionnaires received from the experts, there were 72 factors in 6 areas (economic, social and cultural, environmental, bodily and physical, managerial and policies of city managers, provincial and national policies) were extracted. In the continuation of the Delphi questionnaire, the influential factors were entered into the cross-effects matrix to determine the extent of their influence on each other and the future state of expansion of informal settlements in Shahr Khoi. If the number of identified factors is N, an N×N influence matrix is formed. The degree of this influence is measured from zero to three. Out of a total of 72 primary factors affecting the future of the system, 26 factors were selected as key factors. Next, for scenario writing, 78 future situations were designed for these key factors. These possible situations are very important for the future course of the system in terms of policy. It can be acknowledged that the necessity of developing scenarios is to analyze the system’s conditions. Possible trends for each factor are different from other variables and the only common property between them is a range of favorable, intermediate, and unfavorable trends. Out of a total of 678 conditions governing the future development of informal settlements in Khoy City, 275 are favorable, 267 are static, and 136 are unfavorable for the future of the system. In this article, the selected scenarios were divided into two general categories:The selected scenarios are classified into two groups according to their desirability: perfectly favorable scenarios (first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth scenarios), and scenarios with an intermediate and unfavorable situation (scenarios 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, twenty sixth).