چكيده لاتين :
Introduction
Regional inequalities in any form and at any level can bring about detrimental
consequences. High concentrations of population and facilities in one or more
geographical regions is an evident characteristics of most third world countries and
the growth of large cities has devoted most superior service, social, and economic
levels to itself without perfect continuity with medium and small cities, whereas
medium cities have turned into peripheral, marginal, and dependent environments
by weak connections with lower-ranked societies. Hence, elimination of impediments
to regional and zonal equalized development has always been a fundamental issue
for third world countries.
According to the general policies of the government and Iran's 20-Year Perspective
Document of 1404, moving towards a developed country in all economic, political,
cultural, educational, etc. aspects based on the moral standards and Islamic, national
and revolutionary values is a fundamental goal for the government which seems
improbable to be achieved without considering equalizing policies to eliminate the
inequalities in different regions. In general, the spatial structure of the country faces
inequalities throughout the land. National spaces lack enough and appropriate
connections for unity and integrity which is a sensible matter in the development of
provinces influenced by the unproductive urban system and the dominance of single
regional cities, while at the same time is a significant challenge for the development
of the country and its provinces. East Azerbaijan Province has attained its position
regarding its natural and geographical capabilities by having the industrial hub of
Tabriz in many instances, including machinery, cereal, cotton, livestock production
and commercial services, and in other words, suitable distribution of workforce. On
the other hand, the lack of comprehensively recognizing its capabilities has led to
weakening its role in the national labor division. Furthermore, within the province,
the connections between the main institutions and development centers are not
coherent, and the weakness of the communication networks and the deficiency of
the hierarchical system among them have caused debilitation in the internal structure
of development spaces and marginalization of a large part of the province.
Noting the mentioned questions, the ones whose answers are sought after in this
research are as follows:
../ How is the gap between the counties of East Azerbaijan Province considering
various aspects of development during the years 1375-1390?
../ In the event of inequality, how was its trend during the years 1375-13907
Matherials and Methods
The present study is of the short-term planning type considering its main purpose
and based on the time of data collection, while it is quantitative considering the
nature of data. To collect data, the documentary method is used by referring to the
statistics of the years 1375, 1381, 1385, and 1390 of the Statistics Center of Iran. To
analyze the data, the balanced numerical taxonomy technique, and to rank the
provinces of East Azerbaijan, the cluster analysis is used, such that by collecting data
and statistics (economic, health, socio-cultural, educational, infrastructure and
communications, agriculture, housing, and physical indicators), the analysis of the
current state of inequalities is carried out, and then, the provinces are clusters in
terms of the level of their privilege using the cluster analysis. In this research, the
administrative-political divisions of 1375, 1385, and 1390 are the basis for the cities
of East Azerbaijan.
The utilized indicator in this research are listed in Table 1.
Criterion
economic
Table 2- Criteria and sub-criteria used in this study
Sub-criterion
The activity rate, the percentage of skilled employees to the total
number of employees, the percentage of legislators and highranked
employees to the total number of employees, the
reciprocal of the unemployment rate, the reciprocal of
rdendependency bu, per capita energy consumption in the
industrial sector, the employment rate, the number of industrial
workshops (more than 10 workers) per 100000 people, per capita
value of bank deposits, number of bank units per 100000 people,
the agricultural employment, the industrial employment, mining
employment.
Socio-cultural The number of cinema seats per 10000 people, the number of
libraries per 10000 people, the number of public libraries' books
per 10000 people, the level of urbanization, the percentage of
people with social security insurance, the reciprocal of household
dimension, the literacy rate of people over 6, the literacy rate of
the female over 6 to the total rural literacy rate, the percentage of
inhabited villages to the total number of villages.
The number of hospital beds per 1000 people, the number of
pharmacies per 100000 people, the number of general
practitioners per 10000 people, the number of specialized
physicians per 10000 people, the number of rural health centers
per 10000 of rural populations, the percentage of villages covered
by health centers to the total number of inhabited villages. Health care
Physical
Agricultural
Educational
The percentage of rural dwellings in the county, the percentage of
villages with gas reservoirs, the percentage of villages with gas
lines, the percentage of urban dwellings with water lines, the
reciprocal of the number of households in a dwelling, the
percentage of dwellings with electricity power, the percentage of
dwellings with phone lines.
The level of agricultural products cultivation per household, the
number of machinery and agricultural equipment per Agricultural
Producers, the efficiency per each hectare of wheat, the efficiency
per each hectare of barley and the efficiency per each hectare of
garden products.
The teacher to elementary school students ratio, the number of
elementary school classes per 100 elementary school students,
the teacher to middle school students ratio, the number of middle
school classes per 100 elementary school students, the teacher to
high school students ratio, the number of high school classes per
100 elementary school students.
lnfrastructural Per capita urban parks, the ratio of main four-line roads length
and (highway) to the country area, the length of roads per 100 km2 of
communicational the county area, the percentage of villages with electricity power,
the length of rural roads paved per 1000 km2 of the county, the
percentage of villages with phone line, the penetration rate of
mobile phones, the number of urban post offices per 100 people
of the country, the number of active industrial cooperative
companies per 100 people of the county, the number of active
transportation cooperative companies per 100 people of the
county population.
Discussion
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the condition of East Azerbaijan
provinces in terms of developmental levels and ranking them with regard to
development indicators during the three periods of 1375, 1385 and 1390. To this end,
the numerical taxonomy technique and cluster analysis method were, respectively,
used with 54, 56 and 56 indicators among the counties of the province. The counties
were ranked according to the score of numerical taxonomy balanced indicators, and
using cluster analysis, the cluster of each county was determined. According to the
findings of the indicators, the numerical taxonomy score tables and cluster charts in
this period (1375- 1390) yielded the following key results.
Regarding the numerical taxonomy score of each one of the counties in all three
periods, the results show a decreasing trend of development in most counties.
Moreover, the numerical taxonomy score of the counties increased to 0.834 from
0.728, indicating that the facilities and activities are not commensurate to the
population of different areas of the province. Furthermore, the standard deviation of
numerical taxonomy scores in this period rose to 0.136 from 0.081, demonstrating
the development gap and inequalities decrease among the counties. Noting the
downward trend of development among the counties of East Azerbaijan from 1375 to
1390, in addition to the reduction of inequalities in the province, it can be inferred
that the reduction of inequalities among the counties happened at the expense of
developmental level throughout the geographical area of the province. The
prolongation of this trend suggests the deterioration of deprivation crisis for the
development of the province in the future.
According to the clustering of counties during these three periods, it can be
concluded that Tabriz and Maragheh counties ranked first in terms of developmental
level by drawing facilities toward themselves. The next ranks belong to Shabstar,
Azarshar, BostanAbad and Kaleybar, followd by other counties. The important note of
the results of adaptive anlyasis of development levels in the years 1375, 1385, and
1390 of this research is that no significant change can be seen in the privileged
groups. Among the semi-privileged and deprived groups, however, a notable
difference in terms of the numbers relative to each other cab be noticed during this
period which indicates that the decentralization policies from the growth center and
elimination of deprivation from peripheral area during the last decades have been
unable to achieve any noteworthy achievement in terms of balanced development in
the region. Those few counties that could detach themselves from the deprived
counties and reach to the same level of semi-privileged counties during this period
are the result of the segregation of deprived regions into a separate county from the
mother county.
Conclusions
The results show that the spatial distribution of developmental levels among the
counties of this province in terms of access to developmental indicators is such that,
as we move away from the center to the peripheral areas, the privilege level
decreases and the deprived regions increase. Tabriz County has had a noticeable
development and expansion by attracting economic and socio-cultural facilities in
addition to skilled human resources from the periphery, while not having beneficial
distribution and spatial effect on the development of the peripheral areas in terms of
development, even adding to the level of deprivation. In other words, along with the
growth and development of the center, the peripheral areas follow a reverse trend,
so that regarding the structure of spatial expansion, a type of divergence and
heterogeneity among the regions can be noticed, which follows the center-periphery
system and leads to worsening the current gap and inequality.
