Evaluation and measurement of livability in Ahvaz metropolis

In recent years, various concepts of sustainable development paradigm have been proposed that most of it consists of geographical branches. Such concepts as Green city, Ecological city, living city and Environmental city are referred to as urban sustainable development. Sustainable city is also a new approach to achieve urban sustainable development that was introduced by Appleyard in Livable Streets book. According to growth of urbanization all over the world, especially in developing countries such as Iran, it is necessary to study the dimensions of these approaches to create a viable city. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate urban livability indices in eight districts of Ahvaz city. The study is based on applied research and its methodology is descriptive-analytical. The statistical population includes 1095389 inhabitants in eight districts of Ahvaz city and by using of Cochran formula ,384 persons was estimated as sample size. At first, indicators of livable city were identified by using of documentary and library sources, then the required information of Ahvaz's eight districts was collected with questionnaire tool. Finally, Ahvaz's eight districts were evaluated and ranked by Shannon entropy and VIKOR decision making (VIKOR) methods. The results show that Ahvaz's No.3 and No.5 districts have severally the highest and lowest livability than others. To clarify the status of each area, all of them were categorized into three spectra. Overall, three, one and four areas of the city had desirable, area semi-desirable and undesirable situation, respectively. Therefore, balanced planning between areas and considering undesirable areas should be included in the tasks of the authorities.