- New Communication Infrastructures promoting new Criteria for compact Cities    191 kb by    Fattahi, Kaveh & Kobayashi, Hidetsugu | ka_fattahi@yahoo.com    Short Outline Researches have revealed that planning targets which disregard new movements towards new communication tools will fail. In this paper the author examines whether or not these changes can be applied to make new criteria for compact cities. Abstract Urban sprawl has become a hot policy issue in Iran over the last decade. Critics of sprawl argue that urban expansion leads to an undesirable sacrifice of farmland along with a loss of amenity benefits from open spaces on the urban fringe. The longer commutes caused by sprawl are thought to create excessive traffic congestion and air pollution. In response to these concerns, Iranian local governments have adopted a wide range of antisprawl measures, including urban growth boundaries (UGBs) and other related zoning policies. One of these antisprawl policies which is right now is under debate in many mega-cities is the idea of compact city which seems much more suitable in Iran’s case due to its compatibility with their traditional urban texture. This paper describes practical platforms that contribute to defining new criteria for compact cities according to the huge transformation of communication tools in short future that can be applied to make urban growth smarter. To go after our aims we endeavor to elucidate the mechanism of how urban growth has been affected by development of new communication infrastructures during this century and what roles they have played to make cities shrinking or extending in each era. For this reason, the authors first, through a background discussion, provide a brief overview of previous researches on the relationship between urban growth patterns and development of new urban infrastructures and communication tools. Second, through both visioning and empirical analysis, they examine how the character of urban development can be affected by coming digitization of infrastructures. A separate analysis is estimated for each era, providing substantive evidence on how density, the spatial extent of urbanized land area, property value, and political fragmentation has been affected by renovation of communication tools. Finally, the authors use the results of the analysis to develop a set of policy recommendations and directions for future research. Keywords New Compact City, Communication tools, Smart growth, Digitization, Bitsphere Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2008: Urban Growth without Sprawl   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper