Investigating the role of small towns in organizing mountainous regions of Gilan

Underdeveloped countries, with a growing concentration of population and social and economic activity, face major cities, causing deep gaps between urban and rural settlements. Therefore, the issue of spatial justice and social justice has been raised more than ever. In response to this idea, the spatial decentralization approach was developed in the regional planner's minds and led to the adoption of different strategies. One of the most important strategies is to focus on small cities. The present research study investigates the role of small and newly established small towns through descriptive-analytic method of data collection, in the mountainous area of southern Guilan, which is a desirable applied target in this study. The method of data collection is in the form of library and field studies. The EXCEL software was used for mathematical calculations and plotting, and GIS software was used to draw thematic maps. Data used in the research include demographic and economic indicators during the period of the census from 1986 to
2011. To measure the level of development and the impact of small cities in regional development, the tensile coefficient, entropy, centrality index and base economy model have been used as research techniques and analysis unit. The results of the entropy model have shown that the cities of Deylaman and Baresar, and their under influenced villages have pushed for balance in the urban hierarchy and spatial distribution. But the city of Jiranda has been a factor in the concentration of population. The pull-out model also found that population concentration in these cities was higher due to more socio-economic services. According to the centrality index, residents of the direct penetration area of the city of Baresar are in order of ranking the villages of the direct penetration area, but the city of Jiranda is deprived of this order. The Locational Coefficient (LQ) determined that these cities are self-sufficient in the industry. The city of Deylmann is poor in agriculture, but in the service sector it is well-off. In contrast, Baresar and Jirandeh’s economy is highly dependent to agriculture and they export agricultural products to other areas. But in the service sector they are dependent on other cities and receive the services they need from other places.