Geographical Research

One of the most important and complicated social transitions has been growth of worldwide urbanization. The rapid growth of urbanization and cities has had different consequences which is associated with much urban vulnerability. Physical، installation، environmental، economical and social inequalities have been the results of such urban growth. This paper aims to study and identify the quality of land use distribution and urban services in the twenty six neighborhoods of Maragheh to determine the Urban Quality of Life (UQL). The methodology of the research is based on the descriptive and analytical methods. At first discovering studies have been done in libraries and by simple survey and a field work has been done. To determine the sample bulk questionnaires are distributed equally and finally، Entropy and TOPSIS techniques are applied for analyzing and ranking the level of UQL in the neighborhoods of city. The results form land use distribution per capita revealed that the neighborhoods of 7-3، 7-4، 7-2 and 1-1 showed a better UQL compared to the standard level provided by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning. The rest of 22 neighborhoods had a lower level of UQL which indicated the social inequality among the different areas of the city. The study showed that accessibility to green space has been the most important concerns of the city''s residents. Also ranking of neighborhoods on the base of urban per capita and the indexes quality of life revealed that there has been a weak relation between urban per capita and the indexes of quality of life، as only one neighborhood from 22 had an equal level of both. In general، the results indicated that there are considerable gap among the neighborhoods with respect to per capita distribution and the quality of urban infrastructures. It could be concluded that the future planning policies should concentrate on the reduction of neighborhood inequality in both qualitative and quantitative aspects to distribute urban facilities on the base of resident needs.