Spatial analysis of Sprawl/Smart growth indicator in coastal cities (The case study: Babolsar)

Coastal areas and specifically coastal cities are among the most dynamic and productive habitats in terms of ecosystem and the great context of human social and economic activities. Major social and economic processes taking place in or having an impact upon, many coastal regions in the world are increasing economic exploitations, intensifying resource exploitations and resource competition from various stakeholders. Consequently, these areas are faced with increased urban population trends and urban sprawl growth in peripheral coastal and agricultural productive lands which simultaneously leads coastal cities to decreasing the quality of coastal ecosystems and environmental degradation and threaten the sustainable development of coastal cities. As a result, new approaches such as urban smart growth developed to propose solutions to adapt the physical processes of human development activities on the unique characteristics of coastal cities, to provide a platform for the sustainable development of coastal cities. Smart growth in coastal cities emphasizes on the fair distribution of land uses and the availability of urban services with the priority of accessibility especially public access to coast line and urban compact form. The main pivotal consideration about this view is the fair distribution of land uses to simplifying the accessibility by walking or biking and compact form with the maintenance of environment which leads to limited use of vehicles for transportations specially integrated coastal and terrestrial transit, various of housing options for permanent and seasonal users with different income class with the emphasis on increasing the residential density to protect peripheral coastal and productive lands to change land use pattern as a result of urban sprawl of coastal cities.Accessing to Sustainable Urban form requires putting the smart growth strategy in disciplining the sustainable form of the city as a dominant strategy. To obtain to such sustainable pattern in coastal city of Babolsar we require designing and land using planning based on side walk and open access of distribution services in the whole city. Increasing in residential density in peripheral neighborhoods, pay more attention to marine transit system and integrating it with urban public transportation in coastal neighborhoods, avoiding use of private vehicle to access to coastline by implementing by providing attractive sidewalks and biking lanes to access to coast in center of the city, improvement of housing quality with making variety in housing options for different classes, improving mixed of land uses in peripheral neighborhoods to reduce the distance of work and residential places cause deceasing use of private vehicles in peripheral neighborhoods and ease the public access to coastline for all the people by make the coastline free from governmental organizations ownership, revitalizing brownfields in downtown of city and protect of agricultural and coastal land to change land use pattern as a result of urban sprawl, all as pivotal approaches are considered to access the smart growth algorithm in different regions of the Babolsar coastal city.