Causal analysis of Development and Underdevelopment of Rural Settlements (Case Study: Central City of Urmia Region)

The main aim of rural development programs is achieving a suitable model for the distribution of settlements, resources and activities based on land capacity. The aim of this descriptive-analytical research refers to study of developed and underdeveloped rural settlements. The population of this study is rural settlements from central section of Urmia. Data obtained from the agriculture department of the province and census housing survey that had been done in 1390. For analyzing data, the TOPSIS model was used for considering rural development level, the hierarchical cluster analysis was used to identify clusters of development and regression model was used to analyze causal rural development. The results show that about 81 and 82 percent of developed and high developed rural have been set in agricultural land, irrigated mixed farming and gardens that 68 and 62 percent of these places are located on the slopes of zero to 2 percent. 24 and 15 percent of total villages, that located 5 km from the city and intercity networks, are developed and highly developed respectively. Finally, the regression model also shows that development level of the rural settlements is 3 percent more than cities.