Housing and Rural Environment
Year:2014 | Volume:33 | Issue:145|Papers Count:9

In most developing countries, Planners’ tendencies towards spatial decentralization, reducing regional disparities and urban-rural dichotomy, have led to different urban strategies in recent decades. One of the most important strategies is the transformation of villages to towns to strengthen them. This policy is based on the general assumption that small towns can contribute to the national, regional and local developments. However the beneficial role of small towns should not be generalized to regional developments. Their roles and functions need to be understood within the wider context of urban systems, regional, national and international policies. In Iran, during the late half century, one of the effects of urbanization on spatial and population structure is the increasing growth of the number of towns through transformation of villages to towns because there is a positive prospect about the role of transformation of villages to towns in regional and local development. This research by relying on the study in Dailaman district is going to assess the transformation of villages to towns in mountainous regions from dimensions like economic prosperity, improvement of social and cultural indicators and promoting physical and environmental conditions. The type of research is applied, its paradigm is qualitative and its method is Grounded theory method. Required information was collected through the library and field studies. Field research has been conducted using the method of grounded theory. The sample size included 14 local informed people who were selected by the snowball method. Data collection process was accomplished with semi-structured interview. This process was continued up to the theoretical saturation. After data collection, they were categorized and analyzed with the application of coding system. First of all, open coding, then axial coding and finally selective coding were used respectively. This information were completed and adjusted with recommendation received from experts’ panel. The results of the grounded theory show that transformation of villages to towns has not had much success in employment, land and housing, economic interactions, administrative and managerial issues, tourism and spending leisure time, infrastructural and welfare facilities, and Environmental issues. So the results of this research imply the failure of transformation of villages to towns in regional development. The results of this research are in conformity with the findings of Bajracharya in Nepal (1995) and Sarayee and Eskandari Sani in Iran (2007). They also concluded that these towns haven’t been successful in obtaining their objectives. Although the transformation of village to town hasn't been successful to gain its objectives in the studied region; but it is inevitable for some villages which gain the conditions of being towns for having specific population. So it is necessary to make guidelines and criteria for the transformation of villages to towns. These guidelines and criteria should be flexible and in accordance with regional conditions and tendencies.

Under the current process, it seems, urbanization and physical development of cities, as twin phenomena and on a global scale, will determine the future of the world. In this regard, although in the recent years the so-called “annexation” has been more or less a growing debate among urban scholars, but there has been little effort to measure its sprawl or monitor changes over time. Referring to the existing scattered information and data, during the last one or two decades, this phenomenon in the absence of compatible urban plans has grown and provided the ground for annexation of many rural settlements into the urban and especially metropolitan centers of the country. The result is that many valuable scarce resources, particularly irrigation water and arable lands have been put under urban construction. In addition, many peripheral rural environments have been transformed from productive areas to neither city-nor village spaces. In this connection, aside from the general trends, the phenomena such as “gobbling” on the one hand and extension of the boundaries of urban areas on the other hand, have created such urban centers.This article attempts to examine the different aspects of the “annexation” and related sprawl and gobbling phenomena in Zanjan, referring to two peripheral rural settlements, namely Sayan and Gawazang. The research method has been descriptive–analytical based on mixed documentarylibrary studies and fieldwork. The findings of the study indicate that the annexation consequences resulting from the transformation of rural settlements, not only has failed to improve the living conditions of the villagers but also has paved the way for new issues in rural environments; Excessive growth of population density and immigration, inappropriate urban-like construction, environmental pollution, and perhaps above all, incorrectly changing the land use are some of these consequences.

Statistical methods do have an important role to play in urban design and architectural studies; nevertheless, superficial understanding and misleading application of these methods, mainly in the realm of students' research and dissertations, have raised a serious concern in recent years. It appears that too much emphasis on statistical concepts and tests in the mentioned studies is partly due to the "Commodification of research", i.e. the transformation of research and ideas into a commodity, and a need for an accelerated production process to save time and budget. The poor quality of these socalled pieces of research, mainly coated with a thick quasi-statistical layer, necessitates further deliberation about the issue. This article deals with the challenge of excessive use of quantitative and statistical methods in studies as a phenomenon labeled here as "Statistical Toxification Syndrome". The paper aims to define the syndrome, so as to be used as a research pathological tool, to identify its pertaining dimensions and to hopefully explain the causes through formulation of some workable hypotheses. In doing so, a descriptive research method has been employed for depicting the author' s lived-experiences and an analytical research method has been used to argue the theoretical points. The findings indicate that the Statistical Toxification could be diagnosed as a certain research syndrome consisting of two distinctive yet interrelated dimensions namely "statistical enchantment" and "statistical superficiality". The statistical enchantment refers to a mindset being enchanted by statistical concepts and being over-fascinated by quantitative techniques. This also could be referred to as digital fetishism or statistical fetishism. The statistical superficiality refers to a shallow and partial understanding of valid quantitative studies' imperatives and also to the careless manipulation of statistical tests. The statistical superficiality is deeply rooted in the naïve "scientism" and a wrong belief in the possibility of transforming "Soft science" into "Hard science" by means of appealing to numbers and mathematics as a most solid foundation. Finally, the study concludes a need for the disenchantment of statistical enchantment and warns against the overwhelming application of socalled quantitative research within the realm of human sciences including architecture and urban design.

One of the most significant issues discussed in human habitats, which is of special and particular importance is the outlook toward the habitat and vernacular issues. Ignoring various social, cultural, political, economic and vernacular issues of each habitat will cause planning in that habitat to encounter unsolvable challenges. Therefore it seems that we should start somewhere for every shortterm or long - term strategic planning for various habitats. The biological specifications as well as the potential and actual social and natural capabilities of each region are among the priorities in studying each habitat. A primary introduction with tradition and habitat as well as distinctions, semantic and functional sharing of them can make a well - strengthened back ground in this regard.Applying the scientific techniques while at the same time, considering the feasibility of the field being studied can create a special sample of the norms which is in accordance with its basic function. In the case of architecture, by considering the land (habitat) while balancing the requirements of the users including culture and temperament and on the contrary, considering the fact that it constantly induces the past tradition while it’s emphasizing the fact that today is the past of tomorrow and it will become a pattern in the habitat, will eventually create an integration called an architecture with identity. As a result we can say that habitat is born from tradition and tradition is born from habitat. Whenever they act beside each other, only one of them emerges faster than the other and that is why the architecture is called vernacular and traditional.The present research made by the help of library studies and fundamental analysis, tries to point out the development of architecture from tradition to habitat and from habitat to tradition.This will eventually show that the habitat is the outcome of the tradition and tradition is born by habitat and the two together by considering the time, name the traditional and vernacular architecture. It is hoped that this study could be successful in taking a step in introducing the cognitive factors of vernacular and traditional architectures and removing any probable similarities and contradictions in this regard. We hope this study can be a help in creating the architecture with identity coordinated with the community.

This paper aims to investigate the revitalization of collective memory and its effects on the improvement of the lost place identity resulting from disasters such as war or natural disasters which undermine the common route of structural social evolution of a district unexpectedly.An identity which is the outcome of internalization of a place identity for a person and its result is emotional attachments between person and his environment. Maurice Halbwachs, the most important theorist of collective memory, by emphasizing on the relationship between groups and places, believes that "when the members of a group stand in a space, group’s specifications are transferred to the space and simultaneously a kind of adaptation with resistant elements is made and a distinctive form is put on the structure of that space". Places incite the memory of those people who are situated in such places with the same histories and simultaneously remind the same past days of those people who are out of the places and want to know something about those places.Therefore, memory which is location-oriented subject, when its bed formation i.e. its place skeleton is disappeared due to disasters such as earthquake or war or it faces main and important changes as a result of hasty reconstructions, it is distorted and the place characteristic may be lost forever. Therefore, Place memory relates to place and society which meets continuous identity as a result of relationship and interlink with place. An important point about retention of collective memory after natural disasters is that to the contrary of common conditions of revitalization of historical textures, both the place and the majority of society have been disappeared; therefore, strategies for dealing with such places should be codified on the basis of careful selection of place identity or society, place and their interlocking relationship. By relying upon the role of place identity in the formation of memories as infrastructure of personal and collective identities in a society and mutual relationship of memories with the degree of emotional attachments of people with environment in these two types: place identity and place attachment, this article proceeds to describe these three strategies: retention and repair, readout and event programming in different shaping aspects of a place such as form, activity and imaginations. This article with review and quality analysis procedure on the basis of experimental strategies explains reasonable approaches in revitalization of collective memories in reconstruction projects after disasters.

Iran, because of its geographical position, is one of the areas in the world that have most potential for the occurrence of natural hazards, particularly earthquakes, so that it has the 7th place in Asia and the 13th in the world. With an overview of the seismic zoning maps, we find out that more densely populated rural and urban settlements are located in the foothills of Elburz and Zagros mountains, which have relatively high vulnerability in terms of natural hazards, particularly earthquakes. Therefore, the emphasis of this study was to assess the capacity and vulnerability of rural areas of Sombol Abad against earthquakes. This research seeks to measure the capacities (in social, economic, institutional, physical and natural dimension) in order to coping with the effects of the earthquake hazard, practical explanation of the role of capacity building or strengthening existing capacities to reduce the effects of earthquakes in target rural areas. To investigate this issue, both documentary and field approaches, through descriptive - analytical research method have been used. In the process of field operations, two types of questionnaires were prepared. The first questionnaire was completed by 224 families selected from 11 villages of the county through stratified sampling and the second questionnaire was completed by 45 of rural authorities. For data analysis, SPSS software, descriptive statistics (mean and average) and inferential statistics (Friedman test, one-sample t-test and correlation coefficient) were used. According to the research objectives, the hypothesis, “whether the administrative capacities in this area in various dimensions (social, economic, institutional, physical and natural) were sufficient for earthquake disaster management,” was examined and analyzed. To test the hypothesis, after clustering characteristics of the five capacity components of households and village authorities (including social, economic, natural, physical and institutional capacity) one sample t test was used and by considering the appropriateness of numerical capacity test (equal to 3) based on the Likert scale, it was analyzed by SPSS software to obtain the average values for each of the household capacity. On the other hand, by using the Friedman test, it was attempted to calculate numerical average of the capacities of households and Authorities of sample villages to understand the difference rate of their capacities. The results of the study indicated that the capacities available in this area are sufficient to reduce the effects of earthquake and vulnerability of the area. Given the importance of Issue, disaster mitigation is discussed among the parameters influencing the thoughts of development such as the UN Human Development Index. Therefore increasing and strengthening the capacity of rural communities against the risk and confronting future happenings are the main objectives of sustainable reduction of vulnerability in rural area. So, participatory planning approaches, such as capacity building programs through indirect government intervention to protect the villagers and Planning with the help of the people and local experts and emphasizing on training and increasing its level and granting various helps are the methods to reduce the effects of natural disasters and their vulnerability rate. Therefore, the statistical analysis revealed the positive impact of several capacities on earthquake disaster mitigation and vulnerability of individuals, groups and rural community under study and that appropriate Strategy for capacity building and capacity development can be improved to struggle the damages of future earthquakes.

Due to the fact that Iran is generally prone to natural disasters, issues pertaining to quality and insufficient formidability of rural construction have made renovation and better construction of rural housing as the fixed part of governments’ plans in rural areas in the past two decades. So, based on Rural Housing Improvement plan, it was decided that during 2 five-year development plan (10 years) by allocation of low interest loans and long-term repayment, 2 million housing units to be built in the country and replaced with non-resistant existing units. This study aims to investigate the performance of government on rural housing based on the 4th and 5th Development Plans, using balanced scorecard (BSC) model (i.e. residents and clients, internal processes, growth and learning, and social and financial responsibility). The methodology of the present study is applicable in terms of objective and also descriptive- measurable from view point of the method. Questionnaires and quantitative data of the Housing Foundation of Islamic Revolution in Isfahan province were used to collect data. Statistical community of this study includes all villages in the province for investigation of some indices and for studying certain other indices, only some villages were selected by the researcher. In order to determine the statistical size of the study, Krejcie and Morgan Table and random sampling were used. In better words, first the statistical population is categorized by choosing a village in each province and then the questionnaires are randomly distributed among the related groups within the statistical population. Required sample size was estimated to be 40, 380, 186, and 25 for the rural governors, villagers, building technical supervisors, and staff respectively. Content validity was used to determine validity of indices and questionnaires. Reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) in the questionnaires was higher than 0.7 in all four groups. Findings of the study indicate that in 28 out of 40 indices, the goals of the Development Plan were met with a degree of higher than 70 percent. In addition, the government has had the highest achievement of goals in domestic processes with 88.49 percent and the lowest achievement in financial affairs with 66.19 percent. Therefore, in order to enhance the performance and to achieve the defined goals, it is recommended to build up on the culture, familiarize rural dwellers with plans of the renovation project, increase financial facilities, train local craftsmen and contractors, improve administrative processes and having control on resistant rural housing.

A review of the research conducted on the subject of Iran’s development in recent years confirms the significance and necessity of paying attention to sustainable rural development as one of the fundamental bases for urban and national sustainable development. Through a review of the pathology of today’s villages, some issues are encountered like physical, economic, cultural-social, environmental and energy supply problems. Paying attention to each of these problems and giving proper suggestions can help the improvement of the quality and the nature of Iran’s villages and can pave the way for their renewed prosperity and development.Since securing the whole or part of energy demand of human communities from renewable energy resources is one of the principles of sustainable development, the issue and question of current research is defined as the study and evaluation of biogas technology for supplying portions of energy demand of stockbreeding-based rural communities of Iran from a low price energy source and solving the environmental problems due to incorrect management on collecting and discharging rural waste. The first part of this paper is devoted to a literature review which introduces in brief the biogas technology and discusses its potential advantages. The second part of the paper is a case study of Galesh-Kolam village, in Gilan province in northern Iran. The main reasons why this village was chosen to be studied were its priority in the relevant plan for rural waste management, the serious problem of contamination of local underground water, having no access to the national network of urban gas, and the stockbreeding livelihood of its people.The paper here investigates the potential of using biogas technology to reduce the dependence of the rural families to their current energy supply resources. A field survey is conducted to do this. A sample of the households of the village was selected and the number of their cows and sheep was counted. The possible produced biogas by this amount of cows and sheep was calculated and its equivalent energy value determined.In order to calculate the probable saving in the households ' current energy supply, two methods were used. In the first method, the energy demand in the cookery and hot water sections of households were calculated. According to the calculations done, the biogas technology could provide about twenty eight percent of an average family's annual energy demand for cookery and hot water.In the second method, the saving in energy was calculated for the cookery, hot water, and heating of the building according to the relevant standards and building regulations of Iran. The calculations indicated that the rural families can enjoy a seventeen to forty percent saving in their current energy supply resources.The paper concludes with a discussion on the findings of the research and puts forward some suggestions on the development of biogas technology in the villages of Iran.