Empowering Informal Settlements by Emphasizing the Social Capital Approach (Case Study: the City of Islamshahr)

Islamshahr has been one of the main destinations of immigrants to Tehran in recent decades, these immigrants who migrated from villages and cities near and far to Islamshahr. In many cases, without any investigation or coordination or adaptation to the new environment, unauthorized construction has been carried out in urban areas and villages close to the city and informal settlements have been formed. Improper health conditions, lack of proper infrastructure, lack of urban services, high population density, low-income groups, the existence of informal jobs, and most importantly, the high level of anomalies and social harms are the set of characteristics and conditions that the residents of the informal settlements of Islamshahr are facing. The main goal of this research is to analyze the empowerment of informal settlements with an emphasis on the social capital approach in Islamshahr city.

In terms of purpose, this research is applied research, and in terms of methodology, it is classified as descriptive-analytical research. The population of the statistical community is 548,620 people and the sample size is equal to 384 people. In analyzing the data obtained from the questionnaire, descriptive statistics such as mean, median, frequency, frequency percentage, etc. will be used, and in order to prove the research hypotheses, inferential statistics methods such as Pearson's correlation coefficient, sample t-test, etc. will be used. The city of Islamshahr is located in the geographical position of 51 degrees and 14 minutes east longitude and 35 degrees and 33 minutes north latitude.

The results show that based on the average scores extracted from the questionnaires and the results of the sample T-Tech test, 33 studied indicators were placed in two levels (relative compliance, low compliance) in terms of compliance with the standard model, i.e. number three. The results showed that 12 indicators are at the level of relative compliance and 21 indicators are at the level of low compliance. Also, the results show that there is a significant relationship between the social capital variable and the empowerment of the informal settlement of Islamshahr. The direction of the relationship between social capital and empowerment is positive and significant, according to the correlation number (0.672), the intensity of the correlation is moderate.The results have shown that increasing social capital empowers the informal settlement of Islamshahr.