Feasibility study and empowerment of informal settlements based on mental perception in Zorabad area of Shahr-e Lushan

According to the United Nations Human Settlements Program, in informal settlements a group of people live in similar conditions to urban areas, except from the sustainable housing, access to public health, easy access, safe drinking water, adequate living space and property security. Today, many cities in developing countries face similar issues and problems such as rapid population growth, employment problems and the expansion of the informal sections, and slums and urban instability. Informal settlements are usually created through land invasions or informal subdivisions, the sale and illegal development of barren lands. Residents are forced to use inexpensive building materials to build shelters and gradually build most of a community's assets in these settlements. Thus, informal settlements are highly dynamic communities with a complex mix of assets and risks. In Iran, due to the problems that have arisen in informal settlements for metropolises and even medium cities, some solutions have been suggested. In some cases, evacuation and destruction policies have been implemented, but other solutions according to global experience, as well as the World Bank's intervention, far more appropriate approaches have been defined to solve this problem. One of these approaches that has been considered in the country is the empowerment approach. This approach pays special attention to process orientation, participation and community-based, accountability, relying on the internal capabilities of communities. The area of ​​identified informal settlements in Gilan Province is about 1353 hectares, which constitutes 2.1% of the informal settlements in the country. In these identified settlements, a population of 109490 people live that this statistic constitutes 0.9% of the population of informal settlements in Iran. In this regard, Zurabad neighborhood of Lushan city   has considerable amount of informal settlements, which are an important part of the city. Since the field of empowerment in informal settlements will be possible by preferring to pay attention to the mental priorities of citizens and with their participation, therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the empowerment of informal settlements based on citizens' mental perception. 

This research is an applied study, and a descriptive-analytical study in terms of method and data were obtained through documents and field studies (by completing 373 questionnaires). For this purpose, 5 social, physical, economic, environmental and accessibility components, which were involved in the formation of informal settlements, were identified and provided to the statistical sample of the research (373 people) in the form of 26 specialized questions and measured by Likert scale. In order to analyze the data, SPSS-v20 software was used.

To identify the main criteria in the formation of informal settlements in Zourabad neighborhood from the citizens' point of view, based on Friedman test, the study found that in the social component, the level of satisfaction with peace and comfort; in the physical component, granting urban housing renovation facilities to neighborhood residents; in the economic component, the transfer of ownership of property to the residents of this neighborhood; in the environmental component, the status of noise pollution and finally in the access component, the distance to health service centers; had the highest scores. Also in the social component, the relationship of residents in terms of dependence and friendship with neighbors; in the physical component, the quality of the facade of the neighborhood buildings from the perspective of visual beauty; in the economic component, the impact of the neighborhood on the city brand in attracting tourists and the difference between the price of housing and land in the neighborhood; in the environmental component, the hygiene of the roads and streams, and finally in the access component, the quality of the sidewalks in the neighborhood had the lowest scores. In order to examine the most important priority among the components shaping the informal settlements based on factor analysis test, it was determined that the economic component ranked the first factor, as the highest priority of empowering Zourabad neighborhood. Furthermore, the component of access was selected as the lowest priority among the components.

Achieving the empowerment approach in organizing informal settlements will be possible by addressing the mental priorities and desires of the residents. Therefore, in order to investigate the empowerment of informal settlements based on citizens' mental perception, in Zurabad area of ​​Lushan city, 5 basic components (social, physical, economic, environmental and access), which were involved in the formation of informal settlements, were analyzed. It was found that the economic component with the criterion of handing over the property ownership document to the residents of Zourabad neighborhood, has been placed as the highest empowerment priority.; The next priorities were noise pollution in the neighborhood satisfaction with the comfort and convenience of residents granting urban housing renovation facilities to residents and finally distance to health centers.