Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Abstract
The questions considerecl in this Article arc: l) What factors have effected the form of neighbourhood structure of the cities in the past period of Islamic cities? 2) What are the functions of neighbourhood units in the past Islamic cities? Based a comparative survey and investigation of many related documents this article finds that: 1) The form of neighbourhood structure of the cities in the past Islamic counries affected by pre-Islamic characteristics rather than Islamic cosmology and educations. Such factors as social classification, socio - cultural, religious and racial factors affected the neighbaurhood units in these cities. Also the primitive (rural - nomadism) pattern of life and the settlement pattern of such different group in these cities lead to crystalization of cities in the form of neighbourhood structures! 2) The city neighbourhoods in the past Islamic cities have different functions:
They provide context for socio - cultural, racial, religious and so other relationships and devided the city upon it.
- Through neighbourhood the primitive relationships could be kept and restructured in smalls parcels of cities.
- Urban neighbourhood also function as a tool for local administration
and urban governance through informal controls.
- They also sometimes substitute NGOs and formal parties and promote popular cooperation. Finauy, neighbourhood units in the past Islamic cities despite of various forms and charachters in Islamic countries have two main functions:
They act as functional units for service colverage of subregional of cities in one hand; and in the other hand, they role playing as social units for social relations and social correlations in defined district of the cities.
Both two above functions emphasized in new urbanism theories and practices as a tool for prevention of alienation in the metropole cities, megalopolis and conurbations.
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