Foresight Social Impacts Caused by the Presence Urban Mega-Projects (Case study: Padideh Tourism Complex of Shandiz)

The presence of urban mega-projects will be triggering significant changes in social aspects of citizen's lives. This paper attempts to study the impact of presence and activity of Padideh Shandiz Tourism Complex on urban sustainable development changes examined in 2009 to 2015 from the perspective of citizens, and then the key propellants influencing the shaping of sustainable social development in Shandiz city caused by the presence Padideh tourism complex from the perspective of experts. Research methods in this study are applied regarding objectives, descriptive, and analytical regarding the method, data collection methods are library research and field study, and data analysis has been done through descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (One-sample t-test, Paired t-test, GRA). The statistical population includes families living in Shandiz city based on the 2011 census, with a population of 17,378 people, 5110 households and 236 urban families to explain the status quo, and 40 experts to predict the future. The findings indicate that the direct effects caused by the presence and activities of Padideh Shandiz Tourism Complex in the time interval studied, has had the highest impact on social incentives with the statistic of 19.1. Based on structural equation modeling and qualitative methods, also factors such as the impact of the Padideh on the security of citizens living in Shandiz city, increase of the sense of place attachment in citizens living in Shandiz, increased awareness and education of citizens, etc. were introduced as key propellants effective in shaping sustainable social development in Shandiz city.