Ranking Urban Areas based on Sustainable Development Indices Using Factor Analysis and Taxonomy (Ilam)

Investigating the current conditions and problems associated with the expansions of areas and sustainable development in cities have recently received more attention in the urban planning culture; however, it has not received enough attention yet in Iran. The aim of this paper is to identify sustainable and unsustainable areas in Ilam and to identify the weak and strong points in urban areas based on sustainable development indices. To have a good command and comprehensive knowledge of existing theories, different methods such as historical, descriptive, analytical and case study were used. For data analysis; HDI, Factor analysis and coefficient of Variation were utilized. In sum, from 14 urban areas, non was sustainable; two of them were semi-sustainable and the other 12 areas were unsustainable. In unsustainable areas, one will see the lack of facilities and the existing facilities don’t match the increasing population of this area; these problems increase the unsustainablity of the area. Therefore to achieve sustainable development in all these urban areas, we should have enough knowledge and information about dimension of sustainable areas and weak and strong points of these areas so that we will be able to enhance the strong points and remove the weak ones; otherwise not only the sustainable areas will not be enhanced but also their sustainability will decrease gradually and the unsustainable areas will remain unsustainable.