Urban Sprawl, Annexation of Village to City, and Analysis of Effects and Outcomes Case: Villages Annexed to Shiraz Metropolis

Rapid urbanization, which refers to the rapid increment of people living in urban areas, is an attribute of many developing countries. This phenomenon has occurred in some metropolises of Iran e.g. Tehran, Mashad, Isfahan, Shiraz and Tabriz. Expansion of urban spaces, corrosion of villages and their peripheral lands are outcomes of rapid urbanization (Zia Tavana and Ghadermazy, 2009). If urbanization process -which often accompanied by urban expansion- is not managed prpperly, it would lead to urban sprawl, pollution, environmental discount, and unsustainable production and consumption patterns (United Nations, 2014, 3). Besides, unorganized expansion of cities has several spatial outcomes on peripheral villages e.g. land use and land coverage changes in common territory of villages (Afrakhteh and Hajipour, 2014, 159). Physical expansion of settlements toward each other usually leads to annexation of smaller settlement (village) to larger settlement (city).
The outcoms of annexation of villages to cities may be positive or negative. Some positive outcomes include improvement of physical infrastructures, development of urban services and increment of constructions, etc. Changes of agricultural lands, conversion of producer population to consumer one, rise of expectations, promotion of consuming and increment of life costs are examples of negative outcomes. When some villages annex to a city, these villages would consequently be part of that city; but in many cases, we can see obvious differences between annexed villages and main city in respect of social, cultural, economic and environmental attributes. In the way of urban sprawl, cities impose main changes and evolutions on peripheral areas -often rural. In fact, new spatial interactions between those two different areas and necessitate these changes. This is a process experienced in many developing countries e.g. Iran (Ghadermarzy et al., 2014).
Shiraz, an Iranian metropolis, experienced considerable physical expansions in recent years whose physical area increased from 3540 hectare in 1976 to 24000 hectare in 2011. During this periode of time, population increased from 425813 to 1460665. In other words, during 1976-2011, city population increased 3.43 times and its area 6.78 times; this condition is a sign of notable accelerate urban physical development in comparison to population increment i.e. urbanization bubble. In the way of expansion of city toward peripheral lands, adjacent rural areas would gradually annexed to the urban area. As mentioned before, annexation of village to city has various outcomes in social, economic, cultural and physical dimensions. Regarding importance of issue, this paper investigated the effects and outcomes of annexation of rural settlements to Shiraz city area. In this paper, we investigated the effects of annexation of some rural settlements to Shiraz metropolis in respect of economic, socio-cultural and environmental-physical dimensions, from the residents’ viewpoints. We collected needed data through library studies and questionnaire. Research population were head of households in 12 villages annexed to city. Sample size based on Cochran method was 315. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods. First, we studied demographic evolutions and urban area changes over the periode of 1976-2011 and then, analyzed the data extracted from filled questionnaires using statistical methods.
The questionnaire included 43 questions about various effects and outcomes of annexation of rural settlements to Shiraz city, with emphasis on economic, socio-cultural and environmental-physical dimensions for which 11, 18 and 14 criteria intended, respectively. Some of these criteria related to positive effects and some other negative. Data analysis were carried out using some statistical tests including Chi-squared test, Wilcoxon, Friedman test, Pearson correlation coefficient, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, and Phi-Cramer’s V. Analysis of annexation economic effects showed that from the viewpoint of respondents, negative economic effects of annexation of studied villages to Shiraz city are relatively more than positive ones; In this respect, the mean value of all economic criteria are over test defult mean except the criterion of job stability. We assessed Socio-cultural effects via 18 criteria; mean value of all these criteria are over test defult mean. Evaluation of environmental-physical effects of annexation (via 14 criteria) showed that among these criteria only mean value of “officials’ attention to the physical condition” is lower than defult mean value. In socio-cultural dimension, as the economic dimension, negative effects of annexation is relatively more than positive effects.
Besides, results showed that there are significant differences between socio-cultural and environmental-physical dimensions, and there is no significant difference between economic and environmental-physical dimensions. Results also revealed that the negative effects of annexation of villages to Shiraz city is relatively more than positive ones in economic and socio-cultural dimensions from the respondents’ viewpoints. Other results showed that among personal variables including gender, age, job, literacy and habitation duration, the relation of satisfactory was significant with all variables except gender. Correlation coefficient of ‘satisfaction’ with two criteria of age and habitation duration is negative, meaning that those respondents who are older or have lived for longer time in annexed villages, declared less satisfaction. It seems that from the viewpoint of old residents of annexed areas, gradual changes happened in patterns of life and activity and relationships system may be a threat for sustained social attachments and place identity. Overall, results showed that from the viewpoint of respondents and in respect of economic and socio-cultural dimensions, negative effects of annexation of studied villages to Shiraz city is relatively more than positive effects; about environmental-physical dimension, there isn’t significant difference between positive and negative effects. Howevere, There is significant difference between effects of the three dimensions i.e. economic, socio-cultural and environmental-physical. We emphasize because of different conditions of various urban areas, the results of this paper cannot be generalizabled for all other cities encountered with this issue without accurate investigation and case studies.