Identify functional cores in cities with uncontrolled growth (Case study: Ahvaz city)

The spatial structure of the city has an important effect on economic efficiency and the quality of the urban environment. Inefficient spatial structure, by unnecessarily increasing the distance between people and their place of activity increase the length of the city's infrastructure network maximizes operating costs and intra-city travel. Analysis of the spatial structure of the city is important for a better understanding of urban development and provides the information needed to evaluate the effectiveness of planning plans for general managers and urban planners. The purpose of this research is to analyze the spatial structure of Ahvaz city and identify functional cores. The present research is applied in terms of purpose and in terms of descriptive-analytical method. The method of data collection is library and documentary. The data include statistical blocks of 2016 and land use layer of Ahvaz city. Kernel density, spatial autocorrelation test, and central mean were used to identify functional cores. . Hot Spot Analysis and spatial autocorrelation test were used to analyze population distribution and employment. Pearson correlation was used in SPSS software to investigate the relationship between functional cores and population and employment and geographic weight regression was used to model the spatial relationship. The research results show that the distribution of population and employment is clustered. In the central and marginal areas, population density and employment are low, and in the middle areas, the density is high. In terms of the proportion of attractive tourist uses in region one (Bagh Moin, Ci metri, Abdolmajid Bazaar, Sheikh Bagh, Saebin Mandai neighborhoods) have the highest concentration and are the main core of the city and Lashkarabad, Kemplo Jenobi and Zetoon karmandi neighborhoods are sub-cores. Also, the spatial correlation between functional core and population density is relatively low.