The Effects of Implementing the Rural Guide Plan on the Skeletal Development of Rural Settlements (Case Study: Somarin District in Ardabil County)

INTRODUCTION Throughout the human history, villages have played significant roles in the systems of settlement, occupation and production in particular, and in the development and progress of the society in general. In these regards, it seems that there is a great need for planning and management of affairs. Development planning, as one area of planning used by governments, is being utilized for providing a proper infrastructure and developing rural areas. Here, the improper conditions and problems of the physical texture of villages compared to today living conditions highlight the need for the skeletal planning. Since 1987, Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution has started preparing and implementing the Rural Guide Plan for providing proper skeletal planning and developing the rural skeletal space, whose major parts enjoy physical-skeletal natures. In this article, we attempt to evaluate the effect of implementing the Rural Guide Plan on promoting indicators of skeletal development in rural settlements. Therefore, the present study is to provide answer to this question: does implementing Rural Guide Plan have any effect on the skeletal development of the rural settlements?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: The strategy of development and improving rural infrastructures is considered as strategies defined and implemented in the framework of the physical-skeletal approach in the rural development. In the area of improving the rural infrastructure, one of the main plans which was taken into account after the Islamic revolution of Iran for the skeletal development of the villages was providing and implementing the Rural Guide Plan. This plan is the official guideline for guiding constructional operations and prosperity of villages by having some knowledge about their cultural, social and economic conditions. In the framework of the rural guide plan, those projects which lead to the transformation of rural skeleton and thus achieve rural development are implemented. Now in the framework of the Rural Guide Plan the skeletal-developmental projects such as the construction and renovation of walkway and street network, development of green space, rebuilding and covering canals in villages, constructing and completing the projects of sewage disposal systems and others are performed. These projects have effects on the environmental, economic and social aspects of villages in addition to the skeletal dimension.
The present study is an evaluation research which is considered applied in terms of nature. This evaluation study is related to the activities of the Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution in the framework of the Rural Guide Plan and since the plan has not passed the 10-year period, the study is considered as an intermediate evaluation. The collection of data was performed using library and field studies. The related data of theoretical foundations and the literature of the study were collected through library method and the field study was conducted by utilizing a questionnaire (a five-point Likert Scale). The validity of the questionnaire was verified by figures at universities and in Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution. Moreover, the reliability of the questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach Alpha and the overall value of 0.78 was obtained. The statistical population of the study includes villages in Somarin District where the Rural Guide Plan was implemented. Among seven villages with the Rural Guide Plan, three of them were selected as samples using principal components analysis. For determining the sample size in the level of rural households, the Cochran sampling method was utilized with the confidence level of 95% and error level of 1.5% whereby 201 samples were obtained. The analysis of the obtained data has been conducted using Excel and SPSS soft wares.
DISCUSSION & In the present study the effect of implementing the Rural Guide Plan was evaluated from viewpoints of villagers (who witnessed the effects of implementing Rural Guide Plan). The results of the study revealed that implementing Rural Guide Plan has medium to high impacts on the skeletal development of rural settlements: 32.1% of respondents believed that the impact of implementing the Rural Guide Plan was medium while 37% of respondents believed in high impact of it. These cases are explained by 69.2% of respondents in this study. In studying the indicators of the skeletal development, it was revealed that the indicator of “surface water disposal pathways and canals” has medium impact, and the indicators of "rural housing construction", "quality of rural land use and site selection" and "quality of access to services" have high impacts on the rural settlements. Therefore, the Rural Guide Plan, which is considered as a significant plan for improving the skeletal texture and rural constructions, could have positive effects. Meanwhile, in the aforementioned goals for this plan and also in the charter of Housing Foundation for providing the Rural Guide Plan, economic, social and cultural goals were also considered, though, they are regarded as side goals and generally they become practical through achieving the physical-skeletal goals. Finally, it is worth mentioning that all changes in skeletal Texture made by implementing Rural Guide Plan could not be regarded as positive.