But urbanization process of Iran population began as a result of social, political, economic developments of beginning of that century. This slow process began to accelerate rapidly in the beginning of 40s. So that from then the rate of urbanization growth has been always more than the rate of population growth in the country. The urban population of Iran has reached from 6 million people to 53 million people during the time period of 1335 to 1390; the numbers of cities has reached from 199 to 1331 cities, the number of metropolises has reached from 1 to 9 ones.

Therefore, considering urbanization statistics and environmental condition of country, attention to urban sustainable development will become more important. It is noteworthy that two concepts of urban sustainability and urban sustainable development are often used interchangeably. To distinguish these two concepts, we should note that in fact urban sustainable development shows a process in which sustainability could happen, but sustainability is a set of situations that continues during the time. So the goal of urban sustainable development process is achieving to sustainability situation by creating or strengthening sustainability features in economic, social, cultural and environmental life in urban societies.

Many articles have been written regarding dimensions, qualities, goals and strategies in order to achieve urban sustainable development. Following items are noteworthy among the strategies to achieve it:

Particular attention to urban planning position and change or modification of trends, its previous patterns and models are the most important attempts to achieve urban sustainable development. Extraordinary complexity of natural and human made environment and their relations with human activities make it difficult to predict the impact of development and reject predetermined and inflexible models. It is necessary to adapt urbanization goals and advanced and flexible methods in urban planning and different type of methods, techniques and instruments would be applied for more compatibility of this science with new issues and necessities. Among urban models, recognized suitable for urban sustainable development, is compact city model. The idea of compact city can be useful to improve quality life of citizens by creating active, live, suitable and attractive regarding economical energy and encouraging public transport. Compact city should have a form and scale, be suitable for hiking, cycling and public transport, and its density would lead to encourage social interaction. One of the other strategies to achieve urban sustainable development having framework and physical basis is land use mixing. Land use mixing approach relying on basic land use of city has been produced from the center of new theories of urban development such as new urbanism, urban sustainable development, competitive promotion of land use and urban smart growth. One of the goals of urban development is based on land use mixing, creating urban vibrant commercial center and establishing urban shopping centers so as to collect variations of required economic activities for citizens and increase social interactions and civil relations.

Strengthening social capital is from the other strategies to achieve urban sustainable development. Social capital can be considered in the form of components such as social connection, participation, trust and belonging as fundamental element in order to move in the direction of urban sustainable development that without using it other forms of capital would not be productive.

Social institutionalization is one of important strategies to reach urban sustainable development for creating empathetic consensus and partnership among citizens and defining contexts for norm orientation among citizens.

Fighting against poverty and inequality is one of the fundamental solutions of urban sustainable cities. This issue is so important that is at the center of most conferences and world meetings about city. The first goal of millennium announcement published in 2003 was reducing poverty in 2015 and reaching it to half of the poor population in 2000. Poverty and more importantly inequality threaten cities’ sustainability in all economic, social, cultural, environmental and security dimensions; therefore, ripping continuum of poverty in urban areas is one of the conditions to achieve sustainable city.

Training is the other one. Since one of the indicators of sustainable development is internalizing the concept of development within and between generations of society, investing in developmental training and training human with science-oriented, skill-oriented, changeable, system-oriented, researcher, self-monitoring and with mental flexibility and mobility thought indicators would able develop expansion in all dimensions and it would teach community members as major factors of development in the way and help promote quantitatively and qualitatively of society. That is why the UN called the decade from 2005 to 2014 as training decade for sustainable development and because of its importance gave this responsibility and leadership to UNESCO.

In this regard, it can be pointed to urban security.  Continuity between security and urban development is inevitable and undeniable. Security both build context of development and also it is influenced by it. Therefore, in urban sustainable studies, security is counted as a fundamental factor. Security unsustainability in cities appears in case of social anomie, the emergence of informal settlements communities, crime and violence. Sustainable urban development would not be achieved in the shadow of insecurity. Therefore, attempt for creating and strengthening urban security provide atmosphere for sustainable development.

Conclusion

Sustainable development, as a paradigm with several decades experience, has reached to the border of necessary maturity both theoretically and practically and empirically and public, experts, decision-makers planners, managers and policy maker’s opinions have been in line with it. Needless to say that sustainable development achievement particularly in urban spaces faced with challenges and constraints. Therefore, solutions should be offered to solve these issues and problems with systematic, realistic approach, with local view and in accordance with geographical, cultural, economic and social conditions of each country. Urban sustainable development is not an exception in Iran; Islamic Iranian architecture pattern should be observed in physical dimension of sustainable city in Iran since many of our urbanization unsustainability is arising from applying imported outdated and inefficient urban development patterns. From an economic perspective, referring to resistive economy pattern is remedy of many city problems and urbanization in country, since this model is endogenous and outward orientation and makes and puts our cities’ economy dynamic from within and in constructive interaction with the urban network of the world. Also from socially and cultural perspective, considering to internal potentials, applying Islamic Iranian progress pattern and using all legal and institutional capacities of country can guarantee urban sustainable development in country.

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Masnavi, Mohammadreza (2002), sustainable development and new paradigms of urban development, compact city and wide city, Journal of Ecology, No. 31

Farjam, Rasoul and et. al. (2013) urban development based on land uses; review of its academic literature in Iran, Journal of Research and Planning, No. 12

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Khoshfar Gholamreza and et. al. (2013) social capital and urban sustainability, case of study: Gorgan, Urban Studies Quarterly Journal, No, 8

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