Abstract
Urbanization development in Iran has caused increasing critical problems, with the result that there is a need to review urban planning in this country. This article aims to explore the impact of biophilic planning on liveability, with special focus on the role of nature as part of society. The study was done in Hashtgerd, an Iranian new town, where an environmental analysis showed that this town can be developed on the West, North and North-West, due to the natural potential of the area. Based on the literature review and content analysis (selective coding), components of biophilic planning and liveability of new towns have been identified and used to test the opinions of 382 residents in Hashtgerd on biophilic planning and liveability of a new town in Iran. The data from the questionnaire were collected and processed, using SPSS software. The final dependent and independent variables were identified and analysed. Correlation coefficients in the regression analysis were used to analyse the effects on each other between the identified dependent and independent variables. According to the results and findings, urban management (a component of biophilic planning) has the biggest effect in achieving liveable cities. The outcome of the study is crucial for construction and urban planning team members, clients and environmentalists. Another reason, that is particularly relevant to developing countries, is the natural potential and related industries to create beneficial social and economic impacts. Keywords: Biophilic planning, liveability, new town, Iran
Highlights
In the 2000s, there was an explosion of interest in the distribution of parks and open spaces relative to the equitable provision of ecosystem services (Boone, Buckley, Grove & Sister, 2009: 767-782; Heynen, Perkins & Roy, 2006: 3-25; Wolch, Wilson & Fehrenbach, 2005: 4-35; Pincetl, 2010: 43-58)
Semi-structured interviews with 382 Hashtgerd new town residents involved a series of forty questions that were used to obtain the opinions from residents regarding the effect of biophilic planning on liveability in Hashtgerd new town
Biophilic planning is a new approach that focuses on healthy communities and healthy individual outcomes
Summary
To transition from the sanitary city of the twentieth century to the sustainable city of the twentyfirst, new knowledge needs to be developed and applied in order to understand the role of nature in cities (Vitousek, Mooney, Lubchenco & Mellilo, 1997: 494-499).Because of the size and impact of cities, increasing attention has been paid to their potential to remediate some of their own environmental impacts and reduce distant resource imports, using ecosystem services such as tree canopy cover, and developing underutilized or undeveloped autochthonous resources such as water (Beatley, 2010; Platt, 1994; McPherson, Simpson, Peper, Maco & Xiao, 2005: 411416; Pataki, Carreiro, Cherrier, Grulke, Jennings, Pincetl, Pouyat, Whitlow & Zipperer, 2011: 27-36; Pincetl, Gillespie, Pataki, Saatchi & Saphores, 2012: 475-493).Interest in the remediating role of nature in the city has had a slow and steady history since the rise of the industrial city, including some of the early designs of Fredrick Law Olmsted, using water features in urban parks to remediate water pollution, and his advocacy of parks as ‘lungs’ to counter pollution. Ebenezer Howard’s Garden cities, Le Corbusier’s Contemporary city, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broad acre city plan reflect ideas of the importance of urban nature; urban designers and ecologists such as Ian McHarg’s (1971) Design with nature, and Spirn (1984), as well as planners such as Rutherford Platt (1994) and open-space advocates such as Charles Little (1992) took up the refrain in the second half of the 20th century These latter thinkers advocated that nature should be considered both in designing new urban development (watersheds and their functions, for example), and in positioning buildings in cities to enhance natural elements such as cooling winds in hot summers, or increasing the availability of sunlight in winter. In the 2000s, there was an explosion of interest in the distribution of parks and open spaces relative to the equitable provision of ecosystem services (Boone, Buckley, Grove & Sister, 2009: 767-782; Heynen, Perkins & Roy, 2006: 3-25; Wolch, Wilson & Fehrenbach, 2005: 4-35; Pincetl, 2010: 43-58)
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