Proceedings of the Eighth International Space Syntax Symposium, Santiago, PUC, 2012

Safoora MOKHTARZADEH, Mostafa ABBASZADEGAN, and Omid RISMANCHIAN

“This research aims to study the relation between spatial structure and sustainable development level with the case of Mashhad, a city at the north‐east of Iran. The literature suggests that there is a positive relation between socio‐economic processes and the spatial form in a city, thus in order to comprehend socio‐economic processes, understanding the spatial form of the city is essential. Also the socio‐economic relations in different parts of a city can indicate sustainable development level of the areas by which the development indicators could be assessed.  In order to study this relation, 136 neighbourhoods in Mashhad have been examined in which space syntax is used to study the spatial structure of the city and factor analysis is used to identify sustainable development level. In this study 20 indicators in different subjects including social, economic, physical, environmental, and welfare are combined and are considered in the analysis as the indicator of the quality development.

“The results suggest that there is a positive correlation between local integration and integration r‐r with the changes in sustainable development level; however, this is not the case for global integration. Thus, one of the main reasons for having inequality in socio‐economic conditions in different parts of the city could be a heterogeneous spatial structure in the city.”

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