Structural modeling measurement the social acceptability of compact city (case study: Ahvaz city)

The form of cities in Iran, especially in metropolitan areas, is sprawl. But traditional urban planning in Iran has always been shaped by the compact spatial structure associated with its context (geography, culture). Compactness in urban form and structure is a concept that is used to organize cities from a state of confusion and dispersion and broadly in sustainable urban planning and development, the compact city is seen as a profound interpretation of what a sustainable city should be. In studies related to compact cities, one of the topics that has been considered is the discussion of the acceptability and feasibility of compact cities. Social acceptability is an important factor in feasibility. Due to the importance of studying the acceptability and feasibility of urban forms, especially the compact form from the perspective of the public and residents and due to the lack of investigation of the impact of the compact city on the realization of sustainable urban development This research investigates the social acceptability of compact city in Ahvaz.

The present research is applied in terms of purpose which is in the category of descriptive survey research. In terms of philosophy, this research is a deductive research that is based on the paradigm of positivism and quantitative approach and is considered as a cross-sectional research in terms of time index. The data collection tool in the present study is a questionnaire. Thus, to measure the theory of the compact city, four indicators including density, diversity, intensification and transportation and the theory of sustainable urban development, three environmental, economic and social dimensions have been used. The Likert scale was used to answer the questions and the numbers 1 to 5 were used to score the answers. The questionnaire was completed by two groups of citizens, experts and managers. The statistical population is the first group of citizens of Ahvaz who were selected as a sample using Cochran's formula 384 people. And the second statistical population is experts and managers of Ahvaz city, which was purposefully selected 30. The structural equations method in Amos was used to analyze the citizen-related questionnaire and the structural equations in Smart-pls software were used to analyze the questionnaire of experts and managers.

Compact city assessment in previous studies has been done retrospectively with methods such as survey method, objective data and interview. In this research, a survey method has been used to investigate the feasibility and social acceptance capacity of the compact city and its impact on sustainable urban development in the city of Ahvaz. The variables and indexes that have been selected for the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable urban development are most evident in the city of Ahvaz, and these indicators are the consequences of sprawl growth and unsustainable development of the city in recent decades. Since the compact city has been proposed as a suitable solution in sprawl studies and urban sustainability, the indicators of the compact city have been selected as an independent variable. From the citizens' point of view, the highest coefficient of the route is related to the effect of transportation on the environmental variable, after that, the effect of the diversity variable on the economic variable has the highest coefficient. The impact coefficients of all hypotheses are higher than 0.60. The results of the experts' research indicate that the effect of density variable on three environmental, economic and social indicators is 0.870, 0.890 and 0.900, respectively. The coefficient of diversity path on environmental, economic and social indicators has been calculated as 0.830, 0.865 and 0.864, respectively. The intensification variable with path coefficients of 0.810, 0.853 and 0.872 has a significant effect on environmental, economic and social indicators, respectively. The coefficients of the variable of transportation on environmental, economic and social indicators are 0.790, 0.837 and 0.880.

The results indicate that the indicators of the compact city including density, diversity, intensification and public transport have a positive and significant effect on the indicators of sustainable urban development including environmental, economic and social in Ahvaz city. Therefore, citizens and managers consider the use of the compact city as the basis for the realization of sustainable urban development in Ahvaz.In addition to the fact that all indicators of the compact city must be implemented at the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to the issue of spatial planning and migration control in Khuzestan province and Ahvaz city in order to reduce problems and .obstacles in its implementation