Comparative Analysis of Sustainable Development Indexes of Boushehr City

Cities were quickly developed after the industrial revolution. Alongside the population growth, various socio-economic problems also increased in the cities. These problems in return caused dangerous effects not only on environment but also on soul and body of inhabitants. In response to these problems and crises, new concepts and procedures were suggested for future developments. Some of these concepts are: sustainable development, bio-environmental justice, new urbanism and more recently intelligent growth. Therefore, understanding and analyzing of sustainability of cities and their inside differences including Boushehr city, is necessary for better planning and Sustainable development. Nowadays, with respect to the urbanization characteristics and necessity sustainability development, understanding and analyzing Sustainability of cities and their inner differences, for better planning and sustainable development is necessary. Thus as there is no study about Boushehr citys sustainable development, this research analyzes the situation of this city about sustainable development in different dimensions. Then, based on the investigation of theoretical bases and research background, and characteristics of Bushehr city, the following hypotheses wre offered: There is differences between various area of Boushehr city about the level of sustainability (in social, economic, environmental and physical aspects), so that south area of Boushehr city has lower sustainability level.
In this research, the sustainability of Boushehr city was analyzed by various social, economic and bio-environmental indexes. For testing hypothesis, first, operational definition of sustainability was offered at 4 dimensions and 44 indexes. With respect to the research hypotheses and their nature, research methodology was descriptive and analytical. To test the hypothesis, according to the operational definition and selected indexes, we used Morris Inequality Index, Standardized Score and ArcGIS Software.
With confirmation of the hyphothesis, the results showed that the degree of sustainability is different between Boushehr districts based on the positive and negative indexes. Final results based on the synthetic value also showed that the district 2-3 with 1.01 degree is sustainable, districts 4, 6 and 7 with degree 0.47, 0.56 and 0.73 are semi- sustainable. Districts 1 and 5 with degrees -0.04 and 0.03 are in between, and district 9 with a degree of -1.68 is unsustainable. There fore, the hypothesis was confirmed based on the results of Z-score and Morris inequality indexes. Also, the results of this research were presented as suitable maps designed in ArcGIS Software.
The results indicated that there was inequality and difference between various areas of Boushehr city. Finally, although Boushehr city is sustainable in relation to urban points of country, but there is inequality between various areas of it. Thus the, reduction of these inequalities (in social, economic, environmental and physical aspects) is necessary for actual sustainability of Boushehr city. In this relation, we must prioritize the area and indexes that have lowest level of sustainability, such as district 9 and social and ecological indexes. Also, it is necessary to select reliable indexes for specific cities, because the assessment of sustainability is seriously dependent on selected indexes.