Investigating the pattern of physical expansion in Northern Cities (A Case Study of Kiakola City)

With the rapid growth of urbanization in Iran, in addition to increasing the number of cities and their population size, the size of cities also grew and expanded rapidly, so much so that the rapid physical expansion of cities even surpassed the rate of population growth. This unplanned growth led to the horizontal expansion and created a phenomenon known as sprawl. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to investigate the stages and pattern of physical development of Kiyakola city during the past decades and to analyze the factors affecting them. The city has experienced significant physical growth in recent years as a political center of newly established township of Simorgh. The methodology of the research is based on descriptive and analytical approaches that will determine the direction and form of physical development using physical expansion models such as spatial population density analysis, Moran's spatial autocorrelation methods, and hot spots in GIS. The results of applying the models for city show that the physical expansion of the city was dispersed and non-condensed during 1976-2006 which prepared the ground for rapid growth without planning. The results of spatial analysis show that the density in all three indices of population, housing and construction has a cluster distribution pattern and spatial autocorrelation. Most of the hot spots are in the western and central parts of the city, and the coldest spots are in the eastern and southeastern parts of the city.