Journal of Spatial Analysis

Vulnerability to natural hazards is one of the most important issues of villages in Iran. Iran is listed in the first ten accident-prone countries in the world. It annually imposes many damages on villages through natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, etc. To tackle the problem, an important attempt was applied during the recent decades is the policy of resettlement. The mentioned policy has been followed in forms of movement, integration and aggregation of villages. As spatial foundation and location of settlements are mostly based on natural environmental factors, then before any attempt, or before any dislocation of the villages, ecological potential of the new place needs to be evaluated. However, as dislocations resulted from unpredicted events such as flood are associated with emergency conditions and would be done very quickly; there is not enough time for evaluation before the action. In result, conducting such plans, unlike their positive impacts on service-delivery, cannot be quite welcomed due to ignoring the ecological and environmental factors which need to be considered before any actions. Therefore, such plans can create some negative consequences and be considered as non-successful plans.

       One of the projects that have been implemented in connection with this issue in Golestan province is dislocating and integrating flooded villages on Kalaleh County during 2001 to 2006. Based on the mentioned plan, twelve villages which were located at higher section of Gorgan Roud and were aggregated and located at a new site named “PishKamar”. These villages were flood-damaged. Such a site was urgently constructed based on a top-down approach, urban-based patterns and without considering the needs and ideas of stakeholders. So, such a plan needs to be evaluated and assessed against some normal and standard criteria. As such mistakes can be repeated elsewhere, recognizing the pros and cons of such plans would be a good guide and experience for the next projects. The present paper aims to evaluate the ecological potential, physical design of the site as well as measuring the levels of PishKamar site resident’s satisfaction.

      This study is a kind of the ex-post facto evaluation and its methodology is descriptive – analytical. To do that, we have considered a four-steps ecological potential of the site using Makhdom’s model. We also have used the 1:50000 topography maps, 1:250000 geological maps, 1:100000 land-use maps and 1:100000 soil fertility and capacity. All layers were transferred into ArcGIS environment, for more analysis. Data collection was based on surveying, interview and questionnaire. The statistical sample include 1350 households heads resided at the studied site, of them 200 persons were randomly selected for data collection purposes(According to Cochran   in the formula, standard deviation was 36%, test statistical was 1.96 and α was equal to 0.05). The results of the first stage of our study indicated that based on 330 primary integrated cells and overlaying the maps, there would exist 13 homogenous ecological units. In addition, a significant proportion of the Makhdom indicators used to assess indices was confirmed by chi-square test. Accordingly, 67% of cells in class I with good ecological potential and 8/28% of the cells in the appropriate ecological class II and only 2.4 percent were in class 3 to be inappropriate ecologically. Thus, of total 13 units, 11 units with an area equivalent to 127 hectares were classified as class I and II, and environmental units with an area of three hectares in third class were inappropriate. Therefore, the studied site was evaluated as a good site in terms of ecological conditions.

     In addition, evaluation of residents' satisfaction mapping site in terms of compliance with the ecological conditions and the physical texture design which was based on systemic approach of sustainable development indicators was revealed that the maximum satisfaction of residents was related to house orientation and strength of buildings, road network design and architecture patterns.But the dimensions of environmental issues including soil resistance as a result of landslides, climate harmony with the architecture and the wind direction has not completely been considered. Totally, of 11 evaluated criteria, people were satisfied with 6 of them and disappointed with another 5 criteria. It was confirmed by T-test.

Today slum refers to those areas of the city which are not necessarily situated at the corners of the city, but to those which are in margins from economic, social, cultural, and other urban life aspects, that has formed a settlement in which the least living-supplies of healthy water, electricity and gas, transportation system and a clean environment suffice their lives. This type of settlement is due to the asymmetry and commonality of features and conditions of living in the main parts of the city. And generally indicate the low level of living conditions in comparison with the average standards in the main city specifically, and also in living conditions in cities as a whole. On the other hand, informal settlement refers to the discordance of settlement with the approved regulations of governmental organizations and particularly of municipalities. Those areas which are situated outside the servicing scope of the general and governmental organizations such as electricity, gas, and telecommunications offices, along with municipalities accompany various phenomena such as urban poverty, poor housing, immigration from countryside to cities, environment pollution, unhealthy environments and etc.

            In Iran, slum began in the 30s (solar calendar) with the immigration of village dwellers to the cities, and after a decade, it was prospered due to land reforms and economic-social policies of the day, a growing increase which has never stopped since. Slum or informal settlement in the outer parts of the cities is not just a physical notion but is an outcome of the macro structural factors in economic, social, cultural, and political aspects in a national or regional scope. The reasons for this phenomena vary which can differ from one place to another. Nevertheless immigration is one of the main reasons for slum settlements. It can simultaneously play two roles; it can be a solution to demographic crises. It leads the surplus population out of the region and accordingly the human power is directed where is needed most. It balances the structural asymmetries of population and by reducing the development imbalances in different regions result in the betterment of the status quo. And on the other hand, it might be possible that by immigration of the human power, the economic equilibrium between the source and destination community would be disturbed, and by having a community without any human power, it generates complex social and cultural situations; which all in all leads to a congested crowd overpopulating specific big cities and regions.  In this way, it brings about problems in servicing and efficient regulation of issues and thus be regarded as a disturbing element of development and mutual understanding. The investigated region has been exposed to the crises of immigration and slum settlements recently, so much so that based on the population and housing census of 2006, population growth rate of Shahriar rose by a far distance from other cities to 8.7 percent. Thus, this research was conducted to investigate the elements of immigration and slum dwelling in Shahriar city. And it aims to answer these questions:

1. How social, economic, and demographic factors influence the slum settlements of those who have migrated to this city?
2. How is the local dispersion in Shahriar?

On this basis, with the researches and investigations conducted at the outset of the study, district 2 was selected as a fit choice out of the three districts of 1, 2, and 3 which settled slums. Since all the locals were not slums in this specific districts, with proper investigation the slum areas were identified which had a high rate of immigration; with whom interviews were ran and questionnaires distributed. To this end, by following Cochran formula, 200 people were selected as samples through cluster random sampling out of the statistical community. To analyze data, descriptive statistical methods such as central index, dispersion and inferential statistics like Chi-square, Wilcoxon and Friedman tests were utilized.

The results of the  study indicates that the slum in Shahriar are situated in the old and cheap sections of the three districts of 1, 2, and 3. Also, after a detailed examination it was proved that Shamloo local in district 2 is more suitable than the other ones. On the other hand, by investigating the economic factors (such as job opportunities and income) it was indicated that immigration is very important from the aspect of providing job opportunities. Secondly, social factors are more important in slum settlements issues. For instance, one can refer to urban and welfare facilities, educational facilities, health and recreation facilities are all social factors. On the other hand, those people who have migrated due to pursuing education, higher level of welfare, better facilities etc. are all below 30 years old. Based on the findings of this research, families were not significantly changed after immigration in comparison with the period before it, but it is a vital element in three membered families in times of immigration. All has been done to meet the financial needs of the family. Therefore, one can claim that most immigrations to slum areas have been due to economic and social deficiencies of the source society.