Metamorphosis analysis of the dominant economic role in the villages around the Isfahan metropolis

Introduction

Villages are very important as one of the main sources of production in communities, Therefore, recognizing the dominant economic role of villages in order to play their functional role in the country's production system and also examining the changes in this system are important for a proper economic and spatial planning, especially due to the close relationship between the city and the village through different aspects. Villages close to cities, especially metropolitan areas, are more exposed to this change and transformation than other villages due to the spatial relationship between them and affected by the main city. This role changes according to the environmental, economic, social, cultural and political conditions. The present study aims to identify the process of metamorphosis of Kararaj Rural District around the metropolis of Isfahan and the factors causing this metamorphosis and seeks to find a clear answer to the question that “what are the factors and the process of metamorphism of the dominant economic role of villages around Isfahan” and “what consequences have these villages faced? ". 

This research is a applied research and has been done by using qualitative method and semi-structured interviews with 50 informed individuals. It has a descriptive-analytical nature. In fact, in order to collect accurate information, interviews with rural mayors and local informants and observation were used. Two types of purposive sampling and theoretical sampling were used simultaneously to select participants. Theoretical sampling was used to identify the number of people, determine the location of the required data and find the research path and purposive sampling was used to select the interviewees based on the age of participants. For this purpose, selected individuals from the age group of 30 to 75 years were selected. While understanding the present time, these individuals also remember the past time of the village and provide information to the researcher during this time period. This process continued until theoretical saturation was reached. Then, through the open, axial and cross-coding, the desired categories resulted and finally developed the theory. 

The results of the research indicate that the studied villages of Kararaj sub-district once had a prosperous agriculture due to their proximity to Zayandehrood River and the Madis (according the Sheikh Bahaei divisions), having prosperous lands and being close to consumption market. Agricultural and horticultural activities along with animal husbandry have been the most important sources of income for the residents of theses villages. However, in consecutive years, the combination of environmental factors along with socio-cultural, economic-political and managerial factors have caused the metamorphosis dominant economic role of the villages. In such a way that the dominant economic role of many villages has changed from agriculture to service and industrial occupations and in a limited number of villages that still maintain their dominant role in agriculture, the amount of this activity has been decreased compared to the past. In these villages, after the weakening of agriculture and the closure of many greenhouses and livestock farms, the labors in service sector have been increased and a large number of manufactures and industrial units were formed. 

Finally, the results indicate that factors such as "environmental resource limitation", "proximity to major natural and man-made landscapes" and "different ownership of water and land" and according to the context factors including "rural socio-cultural developments" and "increase in the economic value of land" as well as intervention factors such as "lack of supporting for decision-making organizations" and "weakness and inefficiency in the development and monitoring of land use laws" have led to metamorphosis of the dominant economic role of the villages. "Changing the face of the physical and spatial system", "changing the economic classes of the inhabitants" and also "changing the socio-cultural identity" of the villages are the impacts of metamorphosis of the dominant economic role of this villages.