Sanandaj, Iran: City Profile

This article provides a comprehensive insight into the urban development of the city of Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdistan province in Iran, in response to a clear need for consolidating the scarce formal literature and local documentation on the city. A descriptive-analytical framework is applied to address the various stages of historical, spatial and social change of Sanandaj. A number of particular stages can be discerned, which range from the early establishment as a citadel to the current emergence of different layers of urban space, all of which are associated with particular drivers and barriers to development. The recent urban growth pattern is caused by a combination of rapid population growth, the heterogeneous topography, and unorganized land administration, which results in ribbon growth along arterial roads, vertical development, and clustered-fragmented built-up areas adjacent to pre-existing rural settlements in the periphery of the city. Most of these growths are informal settlements that occupy former agricultural land, often along riparian buffer zones. This causes numerous social issues such as segregation of low income groups, and growing regional inequality. The proposed review of the fundamental structure of the city could contribute to fostering a clearer vision on the future urban development, to cope with marginalization and inequality in newly developed quarters, and to combating the obvious decay in the historical parts of the city.