Analysis of Informal Settlement Scenarios in Northeastern Cities of Iran (Case study: Bojnourd City)

The purpose of the current study, in addition to studying the process of informal settlement, is firstly to identify and analyze the key factors and secondly to propose the most important scenarios for informal settlement in Bojnurd using structural analysis approach. The present study is objectively practical and methodologically is based on future studies and an analytical exploratory research. Data was collected through a questionnaire, Delphi techniques, library method and documentary based research. First of all, the identification of key indicators was done utilizing Delphi techniques then the key factors were identified through MicMac based on cross-effect matrix and finally using ScenarioWizard, the scenarios for informal settlement were proposed. The results show that all 26 factors have affected informal settlement in Bojnurd but six factors including population growth, continuous migration to cities, access to important centers, advantages of the area for low income families including affordable housing and existence of roads, unemployment and poor urban management are the key effective factors on informal settlement in Bojnurd. The results of the second part of the study indicated that generally, the resulted 62 factors can be classified in two groups based on their features. These two groups show the general framework of informal settlement in the city. The first group includes informal settlement with relatively desirable conditions which includes 12 scenarios. The second group, however, consisting 50 scenarios, inclues those scenarios whose key factors are critical or on the verge of crisis on the verge of crisis to ensure the security of sorts events.