Mohammad Rahim Rahnama; Alireza Bidkhori; Amirali Kharazmi
Abstract
Urban has been defined as an autonomous and complex system. Despite the overwhelming differences between urban growths around the world, their growth still follows some universal mechanisms. Darwin’s theory of evolution might have enlightened an innovative view to perform the research of urban ...
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Urban has been defined as an autonomous and complex system. Despite the overwhelming differences between urban growths around the world, their growth still follows some universal mechanisms. Darwin’s theory of evolution might have enlightened an innovative view to perform the research of urban development, as a consequence many researchers have been trying to link their research to the biological metaphor of urban evolution. In the context of an analogy to biology, urban can be seen as ‘organic’ and many concepts from biology can be borrowed to explain the ‘uncertainty’ and ‘relativity’ of urban growth processes. Urban DNA is one of the innovative concepts, which has been used to describe the unique characteristics of urban and the common fundamental elements of each urban area. As Hall (2008) stated “every city has its own DNA, something that makes it unique, and that's part of what makes this city unique”. The main ideas of applying the concept of urban DNA involve identifying the key factors/ metrics which reflect urban characteristics, therefore allowing the understanding the cities’ characteristics with urban DNA. This would allow, among other things, to identify or propose optimal urban form and allowing ‘smooth’ transition of growth patterns and the characteristics of urban from a suboptimal urban form. As Silva (2004) explained, the possibility of defining this ‘key’ (DNA) for each region seems to be of great significance in the planning studies. It allows for the understanding of how the different elements that constraint the functioning of urban system progress and constrain different regions, and what function they should have in shaping future scenarios. This research explores the theory aspects of urban DNA, and makes an attempt to link this concept with an integrated urban growth model (DG-ABC). The simulation results of a pilot study are analyzed in the context of the biology analogy in order to test the possibility of deriving urban DNA from DG-ABC model, by doing so we hope to understand how the key factors and parameters influence the formation of urban patterns, and therefore allowing making optimal solutions to urban growth problems.
Mohammad Rahim Rahnama; Amirali Kharazmi
Volume 5, Issue 2 , April 2016, , Pages 144-153
Abstract
Urban tourism is tourism that takes place in towns and cities where the historic heritage is not the main attraction, even though the settlement may have some buildings pre-dating the industrial revolution. Urban tourism includes a wide range of activities and experiences from sightseeing, visiting ...
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Urban tourism is tourism that takes place in towns and cities where the historic heritage is not the main attraction, even though the settlement may have some buildings pre-dating the industrial revolution. Urban tourism includes a wide range of activities and experiences from sightseeing, visiting cultural attractions (e.g. art galleries, concerts, opera, shows, museums etc), attending special events, leisure shopping, eating out and drinking, meeting people (e.g. friends and relatives), dancing and so on. Different visitors will select different combinations of these activities. Business tourism is another equally important element of urban tourism. These activities are mainly based on manmade resources, facilities that are used for recreation by urban residents as well tourists. Because of this difficulty of separating leisure use from tourist use, there has been relatively little research on urban tourism, although much policy and planning effort has been put into promoting and developing urban tourism in recent years. This has been because many urban planners and politicians have perceived the development of tourism to be a mechanism for the regeneration of declining inner city areas. Both cultural policy and tourism development (with its associated job creation potential) have been used as tools to solve some of these urban development problems. So, once again, tourism policy must be seen in the context of other social and economic problems and policies. This chapter will start by identifying the urban tourist (as far as current research allows) and their motivation and behavior. The paper discusses the spatial location of that tourist activity (as it differs from the tourist-historic city). This will be put in the context of patterns of urban change since 1990; the impacts of tourism and the policies for urban tourism will also be described.