Loss of Identity in Urban Change and Expantion Sprawl Process (Case Study: Sari)

Urban is a social institution and itʹs identity not only a locational reality but also it is a reality with social, cultural, economical elements. They are formed by preserving the physical and architectural exclusive characteres, social accumulation and citizen lifestyle in the historic variation processes. Cities loss their readability and identity in changing and sprawl trends. This applied research, examined the effect of the urban spatial stractural changes and sprawl expansion on its identity in Sari. The research method is documentary and field studies, the processing and Structural analysis were performed by using smart pls software and the hypothesis of the effect of urban expantion and sprawl on the physical, functional, perceptual factors of identity was confirmed with regression coefficients -0.746, 0.798 and -0.722. The results showed that urban sprawl led to loss of the physical and preceptual factors of urban mental image landscape and urban historic tradition center and reduction of social cohesion. The result of this trend in sari converted Social walking city to the car-friendly sprawl citiy