Geography, Economy and Development: Recommendations for the 7th Development Plan of the country

Although Iran has spent the most material resources on development and planning, but the development record is not proportional to the material resources spent. Researches show that drafting the development plan without taking into account the cultural, social, ethnic, geographical conditions and considerations and the political and security requirements of the country will not lead to much results. In order to get out of the current situation, a vital and extremely reasonable area must be addressed, and that is the issue of linking the development trend with the environmental and geographical conditions, and in considering the environmental conditions, priority is given to the geographical environment for numerous reasons. A very important aspect is the advantage of the institution-oriented approach to socio-economic issues, in this way and with the support of proposals, a meaningful link and relationship between the theory and the environment is established. Institutionalists, including Acemoglu and Robinson, criticized authors such as Sachs and Diamond and introduced the theory of institutions as the missing link in the study of the causes of the development or non-development of societies. Although institutionalists have introduced good institutions as the cause of development, but these same institutionalists consider geography to be the most important factor in the formation of the nature of primary institutions. What caused the institutionalists to place geography in the second order of importance after the institutions was a concept called dependence on the traveled path (following the path dependent on primary institutions).

If the principle of the importance of geography and the need to consider environmental conditions in development planning is accepted, the basic question of this research is the logics and adaptations of including this vital phenomenon in the thought and practice of national development and creating a suitable place for consideration. Geographically, in the process of formulating and implementing national development plans and modifying national resource allocation logics, based on this, what path should be started and followed? In this research, using the analytical and descriptive method based on the library method of data collection (documents), an attempt has been made to explain the role of geography in the concept of development.

It can be stated that many development issues have geographical solutions. Therefore, investigating the location and accessibility, the relationships between residential choices and land use, complete routes for transporting goods, spreading ideas and innovations in geographical frameworks and understanding the relationship between man and the environment and in order to solve development issues are important, and natural and human geographical aspects (cultural, social, economic and political) have an essential role in supporting and ensuring the development and national welfare of the countries of the world. In the continuation of this research, some recommendations for the future development program (the 7th development program of the country) were presented.

Finally, during this research, we have come to the conclusion that although geography and environmental factors may not be among the most determining factors in explaining the causes of development or failure of societies, they are definitely among the most important and determining factors. Globalization does not follow geographical unity. That attitude is living geography and it means accepting the general forces of the world in the pattern of distance. It continues to intensify with globalization, regionalism and localization lead to growth and opposing forces balance the effects. One of these changes is against the growth of localism in globalization. So, with globalization, not only geography will not disappear, but we will also witness the production and reproduction of unbalanced geographies.