investigating urban expansion and its drivers in ardebil

The expansion and growth of cities is a remarkable phenomenon in urban planning literature, so that unpredictable developments have become more evident in recent decades, especially in cities that have undergone changes in their physical structure following the promotion of their political role. the present paper seeks to identify the factors driving growth in the developed areas of ardebil city and extract basic factors and variables by investigating development of ardebil. in this study, 27 variables have been tested in 920 expansion blocks during the years 1996 to 2011 using gis and factor analysis. four main groups including congestion factor, external factor, access factor and facilities are identified as driving forces of growth. the final combination of four factors in the arc gis environment show that the north, east and south east blocks of ardebil had a higher score than the other blocks; in other words, these factors have the most effect on the growth of these areas. in addition, the southwest blocks with the lowest score of between 0 and 2 have had the least impact from among the factors mentioned.