Creative City Design
Volume:6 Issue: 4, Oct 2023

The urban informal development is undeniable reality of a great number of cities. Hence, many urbanism studies have been devoted to this topic. These scholarships have used various theoretical frameworks to explain informal development. However, no comprehensive theoretical base is available for this subject yet. Therefore, this study aims to formulate an alternative theoretical foundation relying on contextualist worldview capacities. The research has been conducted with descriptive-analytical methodology through the review of contextualist literature. The results of the study in the first step answer the questions about the origin, philosophical background, evolution process, approaches, and dimensions of contextualism. In the next step, the research developed a new reading of contextualism to be a suitable theoretical framework for informal urbanism studies. This reading explains informal urbanism relying on multiple ontologies, pragmatic and plural epistemology, mixed methodology, and inclusive-flexible analytical framework. In the theoretical dimension, the results have revealed the reductionism of the view promoting contextualism in urbanism, so have reformulated and customized it to explain informal development. In the scientific dimension, moreover, it proposed the reading of suitable policymaking for urban managers regarding the informal settlements. Such a platform is based on accepting contextual (local) realities and avoiding the mostly negative metanarratives.

In the past and in Iran's traditional architecture, urban neighborhoods were regarded as the spine and the most significant small urban complexes. However, physical renovation measures have stripped these neighborhoods of their dignity and identity indices. During urban development, neighborhoods with identities were gradually subjected to physical deterioration, leading to their dignity waning. As a result, urban places of these neighborhoods lost their identity elements and this led to deserted neighborhoods especially from their original inhabitants. Due to the importance of place dignity and lack of conceptualization of that in the field of urban geography, this study by using the grounded theory aims to discover and extract dimensions and components of place dignity from middle and historic fabrics to achieve a particular conceptual structure linked to it. Because the elites of urban planning and architecture of the country have influenced the decisions and implementation of urban renewal policies in the contemporary century of Iran and have played an important role in planning or guiding urban development programs and projects and also, due to the complexity and interdisciplinary nature of the topics related to the "city", in this research data was collected through an in-depth interview with several leading and decision-making experts in the academic, policy-making and executive fields of architecture, social sciences, geography and urban planning of the country. 435 phrases or sentences were extracted at the first coding stage. Afterward, 23 sub categories were identified as components of place dignity in six main categories, including cultural, physical-environmental, social, perceptual, functional, and economic dimensions. Validity in this research was ensured through constant comparative analysis and by following the theory of Davis and Rodd regarding precision in doing research.

Lack of attention to the quality of the concept of development in urban management, especially the development of internal development, has created many problems for today's cities. Indiscriminate and scattered expansion of the city, increase in the costs of urban services, increase in the use of new land are among these problems. However, most of the time there is space for development within the city boundaries and one of the suitable options for development is to use the intermediate development approach,which should be considered in big cities. Therefore, in this study, whit using an analytical-descriptive method, development potentials and important indicators of infill development in Qazvin city are determined. For this purpose, by collecting the views of a sample of people living in this city and urban management specialists, with using the hierarchical method of AHP, the weight and prioritization of the important criteria of infill development were determined and then in GIS software the weights obtained from the Dimtel method are multiplied in the layers, and finally, the layers are overlapped by using Fuzzy Overlay Gamma, and the final map is obtained, which determines the capacity of infill development of Qazvin city. The results showed that the variables of management and economic group are in the weakest condition in the target neighborhoods in Qazvin. According to experts' opinions, among the 13 important criteria for feasibility study of the development of Qazvin city, 3 building quality criteria  such as floor of building( with 0.229), age of building(with 0.186) and slope( with 0.150) had the greatest impact on land suitability for Qazvin's infill development. Another results showed that the detailed zoning map of Qazvin city shows that out of the total 64132000 square meters of Qazvin lands, 6.57% of the lands are completely suitable for infill development, 15.45% of the suitable lands, 26.21% somewhat unsuitable, 31.19% unsuitable And 19% is completely inappropriate.The amount of development of the city in the next 5 years was determined to be 1,411,000 square meters. Also, the amount of land that can be considered as reserve land was estimated to be around 3924000. Therefore, based on the findings of the research, Qazvin city has a good potential for infill development and using sustainable urban growth benefits.

The neighborhood development offices in the neighborhoods targeted for regeneration have taken a big step towards increasing the participation of the residents. However, the city administration emphasizes solving the problems with a spatial approach rather than solving the economic and social problems. This study aims to analyze the performance of neighborhood development offices in selected neighborhoods (Sis Abad, Toroq, Darvi, 22 Bahman, and Vakil Abad) in Mashhad from a local participatory planning perspective. Using the “Plan-Process-Results (PPR)” approach, And the statistical population included 24 experts in the field of urban regeneration, the officials of the development offices of selected neighborhoods and the trustees of selected neighborhoods were used, and the means of collecting this research are semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and library studies.the research criteria including context building and trust building, use and promotion of local capacity to develop the neighborhood, drafting a strategic document for the regeneration of neighborhoods (participatory document), and interaction with the city managers and other government agencies were evaluated. The results concerning context building and trust building showed that although the trust-building projects have progressed up to 50%, execution challenges have led to the loss of the residents' trust to some extent. Furthermore, the neighborhood development document lacks any executive guarantee and legal support. Thus, it seems that trust building takes place step by step when the demands of residents are addressed. In addition, local knowledge, receiving public feedback, and local authorities can act as facilitators to build public trust and promote public support.

As the most human subject of architecture, housing and residential environments meet various needs of people and provide peace, health, nurture, and self-improvement [1]. Housing must be flexible to the circumstances growing or moving families face. Providing housing in worn-out urban fabrics deals with particular conditions. The Shaheed Maghoul Neighborhood is one of the worn-out fabrics of District 6 of Mashhad, where ethnic diversity can be witnessed. There are numerous non-Mashhadi individuals who did not built their houses and were forced to choose the pre-built residential units for living. The failure of the residential units to fulfill the needs of the residents through different stages of life brings about population relocation, followed by identity loss of the fabric. Flexibility is a proper response to solve housing in worn-out fabrics. In this study, which uses an applied objective and analytical methods, flexible housing provision strategies were initially identified. Next, the preferences of people of various ethnicities for changes to improve living conditions were introduced through a survey method in the study area. Considering the type of life stage people were in, strategies regarding flexibility were identified. According to research results, the cultural characteristics of people living in the urban fabric favor different strategies to meet housing needs in all life periods. Thus, to decrease housing problems in worn-out urban fabrics, attention to cultural and ethnic differences will be fundamental to the effectiveness of the design. However, the divisibility of units in worn-out urban fabrics is suggested among all flexibility strategies. In general, the research results can serve as a guide to enhancing housing quality in worn-out fabrics.