Role of higher education institutions in the physical development of city, using WASPAS model (Case Study: Zahedan City)

Urban physical development as a dynamic and continuous process is affected by different factors and forces. One of these factors is the performance of higher education institutions. Higher education institutions are usually deployed in cities at first and then form their affiliated service and centers. This process effects on urban form and one of the most important results is the urban physical development. At the time of this study, there were 35 institutions of higher education in Zahedan and the large number of students has caused the university is known as a premier educational pole of the province and even the region. This paper is a descriptive-analytic research and the effects of the existence and expansion of higher education institutions has review using documentary and survey studies. For this purpose, an expert -based questionnaire has been used. Hence because of limited statistical population, the whole community has been examined. This means that questionnaires have been distributed among 40 employees and experts of executive agencies related to urban planning, especially urban physical development. In addition to citing the documentary and library methods for testing the hypotheses and data analysis, this research has used estimation of mean statistical analysis and SPSS, ARC MAP and EXCEL software and finally the rank of each higher education institution of Zahedan has been assessed using WASPAS model. The results show that the university of Sistan and Baluchestan is the most effective University and hence rated first and Azad University and university of Medical Sciences, are in next rank.