The Survey and Analysis of Rural Smart Development Indicators (Case Study: Villages in Binaloud County)

INTRODUCTION Smart development is not a new concept. Proper implementation of smart growth strategies can have various economic, social and environmental benefits; Smart growth support economic development in two ways; through raising economic productivity, and reducing the costs. One of the important preconditions for the smart development is to take into account the principles of regional planning and the properties of the study area. It means that all areas (whether developed or backward), according to their various potentials (in terms of economic conditions, knowledge and innovation capacity), can move towards smart development. However, in this study, we seek to find the relationship between smart growth policies and the rural areas which are of great variety?
Although sprawl in rural areas is less than that in urban and suburb areas, rural sprawl has imposed heavy costs on rural communities, including degradation of rural lands and gardens (due to changes in land-use), high cost of infrastructure and service development, environmental fragmentation and degradation, degradation of regional biodiversity and so on. Thus, it is essential to employ the smart growth policies in rural areas and apply the principles of sustainable development. Therefore, smart development in rural areas should receive a high priority. Rural areas in Binaloud County, due to their proximity to Mashhad metropolis and enjoying many tourist attractions are highly subject to phenomena such as building more second-homes for tourism purposes, sprawl and change in construction patterns. In this regard, the present study sought to examine rural smart development indicators in rural areas of Binaloud County, and analyze the conceptual aspects, indicators, measures of smart development and their effective indicators in these points, so that we can identify the leading indicators in rural smart development and make use of the capabilities of the policy of smart development in a large collection of rural areas. Therefore, the study seeks to answer the following questions: What are the indicators of smart rural development? Considering the indicators of smart rural development, in what conditions are the rural settlements of the study area?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK It is only a decade that rural sprawl has entered the world literature. Rural sprawl is also known as rural residential development. There is no comprehensive definition for sprawl, and it is increasingly ambiguous and evolving. However, this kind of spatial expansion is characterized by low-density development with single and large residential areas that lead to the destruction of open spaces, farmlands, and forests. In the mid-1990s, the ‘smart growth’ was introduced to planning science and soon become a modern key word. In fact, smart growth is a regional planning strategy that aims to create a regional balance and prevent the destruction of resources, and these are in line with sustainable development goals. In other words, it is the smart growth of planning, design, development and revitalization of cities, towns, suburbs and rural areas which seek to create and promote social equality, sense of belonging to a place and community while protecting the cultural and natural resources". Accordingly, rural settlements are also part of the spatial-local system which in recent decades, due to development resulting from internal and external factors and forces, have grown in an unorganized manner. This has posed considerable challenges in maintaining the rural features, while supporting the economic development and the opportunities, and requires a set of tools that enable them to take the diversity of rural communities into account, and make progress towards development.
METHODOLOGY This study is an applied one conducted in a descriptive-analytical method. Data were collected using documentary methods and field work. A major part of the data was gathered by expert questionnaires for identifying the smart development indicators and prioritizing the research indicators, which were based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) and the significance of the indicators of the study in smart development. To answer the second question of the study, four village of Abr-deh Oliya, Jagharq, Hesar Golestan and Virani in Binaloud County were selected as the sample population. A total of 3549 households were in these rural areas, of which 163 households were selected using Cochran formula and stratified random sampling method to complete the questionnaires whose validity and reliability were confirmed (with Cronbach's alpha greater than 0.7). Then, statistical and inferential data were extracted and analyzed.
In the final step, to rate the villages of the study area in terms of achieving rural smart development, we used gray relational analysis and GRA technique. For this purpose, based on the average of the six main indicators of the study, the villages of the study were rated.
DISCUSSION Based on exploratory studies, six indicators of environmental, economic, rural creative economy, physical, socio-cultural and human capital are effective in rural smart development. To determine their importance factor, an expert-based questionnaire was prepared and a paired comparison was conducted by 16 experts (university professors). FAHP showed the indicators of rural creative economy (0.534), human capital (0.148), and the economic indicators (0.138) had the greatest effect in shaping the rural smart development; and the environmental indicators weighing 0.214 had the least importance factor in developing rural smart development.
The results of measuring the effects of rural smart development in life of the villagers in sample villages showed the average of 3.71 for the variable of rural smart development is higher than theoretical mean, and shows a positive background for rural smart development in the villages of the study area from the perspective of villagers. The indicators of human capital with an average of 3.88 and economic indicators with an average of 3.83 from the perspective of villagers, were in better conditions and accordingly would have the greatest effect in rural smart development. In spatial distribution of the average of the research variable, namely rural smart development, the village of Jagharq with the value of 3.81 and the village of Virani with the value of 3.65 respectively had the highest and lowest statistics. These results were confirmed by gray relational analysis and the village of Jagharq had the best performance in rural smart development.
CONCLUSION Among the patterns of sustainability, experts and politicians had more consensus on its compact form and its strategy, i.e., smart development. This study which analyzes the smart rural development indicators in the sample villages of Binaloud County, shows that local-spatial systems are the consequence of external and internal factors and forces. In fact, the phenomenon of rural smart development in the sample villages is the consequence of six indicators: economic, environmental, physical, socio-cultural, human capital and creative economy, which were identified by importance factor of each indicator in smart rural development. It should be noted that these forces and factors operate in a dialectic manner.
Investigation of various indicators of smart development in sample rural areas and one sample t-test results showed the unfavorable conditions of the indicators of ‘family economy’ (12.5), environmental (14.4) and physical conditions (16.1) in these villages. In contrast, the value of t-statistics in indicators of human capital (21.8), economic (19.2) and socio-cultural (19.1) were high, which show the better conditions of these indicators for the realization of smart development in the sample villages. Based on the results of variance analysis, we may conclude that there is no significant difference among the four village of Abr-deh, Jagharq, Hesar Golestan and Virani in terms of rural smart development.