Sustainable Urban Development Through Urban Consolidation Policy in Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

In the past few decades, cities from various parts of the world have faced with unplanned and uncontrolled physical expansion due to inappropriate policies. Among different solutions against urban sprawl, the dominant sustainable cure is the so-called 'Urban Consolidation' (UC). This paper aims to explore urban sprawl characteristics and present its cause and effect on the sustainability criteria of Shiraz city, Iran. It is confined to an exploration of population growth and physical expansion of the city. The data has been collected from governmental organizations and documents. This paper examines UC policy implementation in the inner city of Shiraz to control low-density urban sprawl. As the result, this paper discovers that the policy emphasizes on the higher density housing development in existing urban areas considering the capacity of infrastructures and facilities’ availability prior to calculate housing targets to decrease the demand for Greenfield development. It concludes with a brief discussion on the challenges to achieve sustainable urban development goals in the city through UC strategies.