Analysis of the Impact of Rational Action Indicators on Citizens' Participation in Informal Settlement Empowerment Plans (A Case Study of Informal Settlements of Vakil Abad and Islamabad 2 in Urmia)

The rapid growth of the city and the consequent increase in urbanization has led to major problems, including the increase of informal settlements in developing countries such as Iran. Accordingly, the type and nature of dealing with the phenomenon of informal housing are the issues that have a special place in urban planning and management. In the past, various approaches to the problem of informal settlements have become commonplace and widely used in different countries. But the ineffectiveness of the plans forced the government to adopt a new approach to enable residents in the late 1980s. In general, considering a multidimensional and more comprehensive enabling approach somewhat covers the previous weaknesses. Also, the use of participatory practices in the empowerment of informal settlements is one of the strategies that are now underlined by urban scholars. The necessity of using the rational indicators in promoting the participation of people in implementing the plans of informal settlement enabling becomes more and more important. The present article attempts to investigate the effect of the scale of rational action (assessment of cost and benefit) on improving the participation of people in implementing various plans for the enabling of informal settlements. The statistical population of the study includes residents of informal settlements of Vakil Abad and Islamabad 2 in Urmia and the sample size covers 150 households. The research method in this study is descriptive-comparative and is based on documentary and questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha, statistical methods, Pearson, and linear regression tests in Spss were used to obtain the necessary data. The research results have been used to gain a better understanding of the location to examine the physical, social and environmental aspects of the location. The results indicate that, by promoting the level of rational action indicators, the level of participation of residents in the implementation of enabling plans increases. Also, the results of the Path model analysis demonstrate that the effectiveness of government recommendations in enabling plans with a score of 0.490 and the effectiveness of enabling plans with a score of 0.445 has the highest effect. The utility index of demolition of residential units and their aggregation with a score of 0.128 and also a timely performance of the projects by the municipality with a score of 0.292 had the least effect on popular participation.