Functional Evaluation of Mazandaran Province Cities Using Factor Analysis, Numerical Taxonomy and Cluster Analysis* Shima Dadfar1**, Naser Azimi2 and Hasan Ahmadi3
Armanshahr Architecture & Urban Development, 6(10), 253-266, Spring Summer 2013 ISSN: 2008-5079 Functional Evaluation of Mazandaran Province Cities Using Factor Analysis, Numerical Taxonomy and Cluster Analysis* Shima Dadfar1**, Naser Azimi2 and Hasan Ahmadi3 1Master of Urban & Regional Planning, Faculty of Art & Artitecture, Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central University, Tehran Central Branch, Tehran, Iran. 2Assistent Professor of Urban Planning, Faculty of Art & Artitecture, Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central Branch, Tehran, Iran. 3Assistent Professor of Urban & Regional Planning, Faculty of Art & Artitecture, University of Guilan, Guilan, Iran. Received 17 April 2013; Revised 30 April 2013; Accepted 29 July 2013 ABSTRACT: One priority of planning at the regional level is to recognize the system of residence and particularly its urban system. One of the features of urban system in each area or country is the way of population distribution between the cities of these areas which is called city distribution size. In functional analysis of Mazandaran province 41 development indexes of educational, cultural, social, demographic, economic, health and agricultural fields were selected, then by using factor analysis through SPSS Software, these factors were decreased into 6 main indexes and finally consolidated indexes were extracted. Then, these six factors were used as the inputs of taxonomy analysis in Excel, and the scores of cities which were valued between 0 -1 were obtained. Finally, in order to classify Mazandaran province cities by using cluster analyses, SPSS and Taxonomy scores, all of the cities were classified into 6 levels. To present the results graphically, GIS software was used to present a map entitled “Map of Mazandaran province cities classification”.
[Show full text]