hojatollah rahimi

Improving regional-territorial competitiveness has become a critical issue in regional planning due to the increase in the spatial movements of financial resources and human capital in the contemporary networked society. Considering the increasing importance of the issue, the present article using different spatial statistics methods such as differential Moran I method I, k-medoids cluster analysis, and geographically weighted regression, focused on analyzing the spatial-temporal change in inter-regional competitiveness and its influence on inter-regional migration in Iran from 2011 to 2016. The results showed that the pattern of spatio-temporal change in the inter-regional competitiveness index for each region during 2001-2016 has a weak correlation with that in its neighboring regions. In other words, regions showed weak similarities according to their competitiveness scores. The same pattern can be seen for the pattern of inter-regional migration. Regions exhibited negative but weak spatio-temporal correlation with each other in terms of the total number of immigrants in the years 2006 and 2011. The role of inter-regional competitiveness in explaining inter-regional migration increased in 2016 compared with 2006, implying the increasing significance of inter-regional competitiveness in determining the spatio-temporal pattern of inter-regional migration in Iran. As a result, those regions that do not take strategies to improve their regional competitiveness should expect to encounter an increase in the number of emigrants. In this way, inter-regional competitiveness can reinforce uneven regional development in the future.

AbstractAccording to the Chicago School of Sociology, the high social class is always the winner of the competition for the best social roles and geographical situations, and has the power to manipulate the urban space by its class interests. This article presents an alternative interpretation to deconstruct the traditional view of the Chicago School of Sociology about the relations between money, power and residential moves within the city. To do this, the concentric zone model introduced by Burgess is selected as the analytical framework. The present article argues that the upper economic class is not always the fit class for urban competition, nor does it hold the ultimate determinative position in shaping the residential moves within the city. Instead, the lower-income class has the power to determine the location and movement of the upper economic class within the city concerning its class interests. The upper economic class are defeated in competition with the lower-income class to capture the best zone for residential use located next to the C.B.D. The power relations between different social classes should be considered as a network according to which the power is distributed among all social classes, rather than possessed by a specific social class. 

According to the Chicago School of Sociology, the high social class is always the winner of the competition for the best social roles and geographical situation and has the power to manipulate the urban space by its class interests. Criticisms against the Chicago School of Sociology challenge the reactive position of this school towards social inequality in urban spaces. Although they have not legitimated the inter-class competition and the production of unequal urban spaces, these critics, like the Chicago School of Sociology, have implicitly accepted that the upper economic classes are the winners of inter-class competition due to their control over financial and political resources. Despite the insights drawn from these critics, this article argues that the interpretations and explanations presented by both the Chicago School of Sociology and these critics are insufficient. The present article argues that the upper economic class is not always a merit class. This class does not always win inter-individual and inter-class competition, but the lower economic class also has the power to control the patterns of residential moves within the city. The lower economic class can adjust the socio-spatial structure of the city in line with its class interests through collective action. This article presents an alternative interpretation to deconstruct the traditional interpretations presented by the Chicago School of Sociology about the relations between money, power and the patterns of residential moves within the city. 

Methods and Data:

To do this, the concentric zone model introduced by Burgess, a well-known member of the Chicago School of Sociology, is selected as the analytical framework. The socio-spatial structure of the city, according to Burgess's concentric zone model, is expanded in a few concentric circles or zones, each of which has its own specific function and land use pattern. The model divides the city into five concentric zones, including the central business district (C.B.D), transitional zone, labor residential zone, middle-class residential zone, and urban commuting zone. In other words, the city, according to this model, is divided into two large spaces: working and living spaces. C.B.D and the transitional zone constitute working spaces, and the three other zones are devoted to living spaces. The socio-spatial change and expansion of these zones are explained with regard to four ecological stages, i.e., invasion, resistance, entry and dominance. The alternative interpretation presented in this article can apply to other models of the socio-spatial structure of the city, such as Hoyt's sector model and Harris and Ullman's multiple nuclei model. These models have attempted to modify some assumptions underpinned the concentric zone model. For example, the spatial or physical expansion of the city in these models is asymmetry and discontinuous. The urban transportation network has a significant role in determining the direction of urban physical expansion and urban land price in the sector model. The multiple nuclei model adds heavy industries to the concentric zone model and removes the assumption of a mono-centric city. However, these models, like the concentric zone model, are based on social Darwinism and ecological assumptions about human society. 

The present article argues that the upper economic class is not always the fit class for urban inter-class competition, nor does it hold the ultimate determinative position in shaping the socio-spatial structure of the city. Instead, the lower-income class can also determine the location and movement of the upper economic class within the urban space concerning its class interests. The lower-income class, as the concentric zone model shows, occupies the best location for residential land use, i.e., houses in zone 3. Although the quality of houses is low, the land allocated for residential uses has potentially the highest price in this zone because of its proximity to C.B.D. Residential land uses in this zone are divided into small-area houses by the low-income class to correspond to their ability to pay house rent. Low-income class wins the inter-class competition for residing in zone 3 because their population is greater than the high-income class and their tendency to live in small-area houses. This article explains that the upper economic class cannot freely manipulate the urban space according to its class interests, as they are defeated in competition with the lower-income class to capture the best zone, i.e., zone 3 for residential use located next to the C.B.D. 

As this article has argued, the socio-spatial structure of the city should be considered as an interconnected whole. The city is a structured continuum, and its constituent parts, i.e., the social classes, act not based on free will, but in terms of the necessity governing this complex, structured continuum. In addition, the power relations between different social classes should be analyzed as a network according to which the power is distributed among all social classes, rather than possessed by a specific social class.

Different approaches to spatial planning are a way to make our surrounding world meaningful. The Structural-Functional Dynamic approach (SFDA) has recently been articulated within the context of Iranian geographers to provide an alternative meaning for spatial planning concerning the socio-spatial context of Iran. We have interpreted some methodological aspects of this approach in Structural-Functional Dynamics Approach to Spatial Planning ("planning") published in Spatial Planning journal in 2016. The main argument was that the conceptualization of the two essential concepts of space and man in SFDA needs to be revised based on consistent assumptions. Although SFDA, following humanism, has rejected objectivism, an elitist top-down spatial planning, the idea of threshold in the neoclassical economy, and universal laws of human behavior, it reproduced them due to its tendency to positivism and the paradigm of geography as a spatial science. In 2018, the author of SFDA in scientific critique and the critique of the Structural-Functional dynamic approach ("Scientific Critique") criticized the way of interpretation presented in planning because of the incorrect translation and misinterpretation of scientific texts, the secondary referencing; and the misunderstanding of the concepts articulated in SFDA. The present article aimed to clarify arguments and interpretations presented in the planning to reply to the Scientific Critique

Urban laws define power relations to change and reproduce urban spaces. The present article aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of "the law of the endorsement of revitalization, improvement and regeneration of decayed and inefficient urban neighborhoods on the process of urban regeneration in the decayed districts of Hamidia city, Yazd province, Iran, by using statistical methods including the Chi-square test, one-sample T-test and path analysis. The results showed all indicators related to urban regeneration are lower than the expected situation because regenerating drivers, including public-private participation, the socio-economic empowerment of residents, the provision of financial resources, tax incentives, building incentives, the allocation of urban infrastructure, urban land supply, the reduction of organizational bureaucracy and the improvement of inter-organizational coordination, do not work efficiently in the study area. The results of the one-sample T-test indicated that the above drivers have a significant distance from the expected conditions. According to the path analysis, the variables of socio-economic empowerment of residents, the allocation of urban infrastructure and the provision of financial resources have the most positive and overall effect on the urban regeneration of the decayed districts, respectively. Variables of the organizational bureaucracy, inter-organizational coordination and urban land supply have the most negative and overall effects, respectively. The ineffectiveness of urban regeneration law in Hamida city may result from its holistic and comprehensive approach. In urban environments like Hamida city with low diversity and low desirability of socio-economic-physical potentials, this approach can reduce the capacity of urban planners and managers to mobilize socio-economic and spatial resources to revitalize decayed districts.

To date, a large number of researches have been published in terms of Lefebvre’s concept of the right to the city within social sciences without a serious critique of the concept. This article, drawing upon Derrida, has attempted to provide a critical analysis of the concept based on the following two questions: 1) on what assumptions has the concept been formulated? 2) What kinds of theoretical and ethical paradoxes does the concept suffer from? The article has argued that the essential assumptions of the concept have been distorted by scientists because they, contrary to Lefebvre, seek to operationalize the concept within the context of the capitalist city. In addition, the operationalization of the concept within Lefebvre’s utopia is still subject to critique, because while utopia is not a place of violence, Lefebvre’s utopia is, according to Derrida, the space of law-making violence and law-preserving violence. Lefebvre’s utopia is only a movement from one type of violence to another one. On the other hand, the concept is unethical for the working class, as the only legitimate force of actualizing the concept, acts under historical necessity and without free will. As far as the labor force, as the only legitimate force for the actualization of the concept of the right to the city, acts under historical necessity and without its own will, it cannot and should not be regarded as a just class or lacking in justice and responsibility or be considered irresponsible because justice and responsibility are true in the case of free will agency. Therefore, if ethics is the sphere of free will, then the concept of the right to the city is free of ethics.

With regard to the key effects that spatial-functional correlations between urban public facilities have on the quality of urban life, the aim of this article was to analyze the correlations between public facilities in Yazd city. To do this, four different methods, including the nearest neighbor index, K-Ripley function, spatial correlation index and analysis of variance (ANOVA) for two different groups of facilities including homogeneous public facilities and heterogeneous public facilities have been carried out in this article. Results have shown that although facilities such as technical and vocational training centers and public health services have shown a clustered pattern according to the nearest neighbor index, as the K-Ripley function has indicated, their distribution does not follow the same pattern at different scales of analysis. The analysis of the spatial correlation between the distribution of population and the distribution of public facilities has also shown that there is a negative correlation between them, except hygenic facilities. In addition, as the analysis of the spatial correlation between heterogeneous facilities has shown, except the correlation between higher education facilities and sports facilities, there was a positive but not strong relationship between all of them. Finally, it has been argued, according to the ANOVA method, that the high values of spatial correlation between heterogeneous public facilities do not necessarily mean that they are close to each other spatially.

Tendencies towards poststructuralist (or postmodernist) planning theory have increased since the 1970s. Generally, planning theory has till now, engaged with Deleuze from two different perspectives. In one hand, there are planners such as Hillier who argue in favour of a reformist, step-by-step Deleuzian planning theory. These planners seek to apply Deleuzian concepts to hierarchical state-led, capitalist societies. On the other hand, there are planners such as Purcell who by highlighting the anarchistic dimension of Deleuze’s philosophy, argue that Deleuzian planning theory entirely rejects any state-led reformist planning and is essentially anticapitalist philosophy. This article argued that the two above-mentioned frameworks, i.e. Hillier’s reformism framework and Purcell’s anarchism framework, are, in fact, based on rational models of action and thought, which are in contradiction with Deleuzian philosophy. Although there are multiple concepts and metaphors in Deleuze’s philosophy that enables geographers and planners to ‘analyze’ capitalism-based social relations, two concepts of ‘desire’ and ‘the politics of desire’ should be considered as fundamental points of departure if we aim to develop a Deleuzian planning theory. Unlike Hillier’s point of view, Deleuzian concept of desire, as an unconscious force, is never reformist and reactive, but revolutionary and active. In addition, unlike Purcell’s anarchist point of view, the politics of desire does not aim to produce ethically stable subjects who seek to construct a rational order of community according to mutual aid and agreement. Rather, this kind of politics by its creative nature directed at deconstruction of social forms and orders like captialism and state.

The interest in the situational approach have increased in social sciences and urban planning since 1970s to explain people’s environmental safety perception and criminal behaviour. Space syntax theory as one of the main theories within the field of the situational approach is based on the assumption that high level of accessibility makes an urban space safer from crime. According to space syntax theory, strangers’ direct interface with inhabitants results in creating a safe neighbourhood. The present article aims to investigate the way in which spatial configuration of the historical area of Yazd city influences residents’ environmental safety perception living in the area to test the assumption of the theory of space syntax. To achieve its goal, the article has taken three main steps respectively as follow: First, residents’ safety perception was evaluated by closed questionnaire and statistical tests. In the next step, the spatial configuration of the area was analyzed by space syntax theory. Finally, the role of spatial configuration in the environmental safety perception was analyzed by geographically weighted regression and multivariate regression. According to geographically weighted regression, the spatial configuration of the historical area of Yazd city explains 36% of variance in environmental safety perception in the area. In addition, multivariate regression explains 51% variance of the dependent variable. Our findings confirm the assumption of the theory of space syntax according to which safe urban spaces are the production of accessibility, integration and publicization of space.

Lloyd has attempted to construct a framework for social class analysis with regard to the context of the Third World cities. To do this, he, in A Third World Proletariat (1982), seeks to combine two major traditions, Weberism and Marxism. This paper argued that the combination of the two traditions acts as a source of the following theoretical and methodological inconsistencies. First, while Lloyd along with Marx considers working class as a fixed identity in the First World cities, Weberian tradition considers it as a contingent identity. Second, while he, was influenced by Marx, argues that class stratification shapes racial and ethical stratification and relationship, Weberian tradition adheres mutual relations among different fields of society. Third, while he explains relations between economic classes and political regulation of State from Marxist point of view, he neglects to explain relations between social status and political regulation of State, which is important within Weberian tradition. Forth, Class stratification, for him, is an ‘urban’ phenomenon and racial and ethical stratification belong to ‘the rural’, while, from Weberian point of view, racial and ethical stratification are key elements of ‘the urban’. Fifth, Lloyd’s framework seems unacceptably simplistic to combine Weber’s methodological individualism with Marx's ontological holism.

Globalism discourse has been becoming a dominant discourse in many countries and has been influenced governance patterns in different spatial levels through state intermediation in recent years. According to this perspective, the primary aim of this article is to explain consequences of Globalism discourse on the pattern of territorial governance of Tehran metropolis. For the purpose of this article, Critical Discourse Analysis which is a qualitative method has been used for data analysis. Discourse analysis of national development plans shows that particular macro-economic structures and condition, especially decreasing economic growth coupled with increasing fiscal deficits, uprising inflation and expanding public expenditures has gradually forced State to shift form Developmental State discourse to Globalism State discourse through discursive articulation, discursive institutionalization and discursive operationalization processes during 1990-2014. According to Globalism discourse, State has gradually retreated from the provision of some public goods and transferred them to Tehran Municipality. Transfer of financial and administrative responsibilities from State to the Municipality has led it to rentier urban management model because of transferred financial constraints and lack of anti-rent urabn movements. Consequently, these processes intensify the Municipality’s territoriality and then, give emphasis to space and territory in the Municipality’s financial system. Territorial coding and territorial assemblage are two main instruments of the Municipality for territorialization strategies, for reaction to its increasing territoriality and for capturing more spatial territory. Existing cities in Tehran metropolitan area compete to capture more space in the same way, making it difficult to achieve a participatory management model of regional issues.

Helicobacter pylori colonizes not only on the surface of mucous membrane, but also beneath the surface mucous gel layer (SMGL). As diclofenac Na decreases the secretion of SMGL, in this study we examined this drug as an adjuvant therapy to a quadruple therapy for H. Pylori eradication.

One hundred and seventy‑two patients were randomly assigned to three groups. Fifty four patients received quadruple therapy, that is, azithromycine 250 mg, amoxicillin 500 mg, bismuth subcitrate 240 mg, and omeprazole 20 mg bid for 1 week (group A) and 65 patients received the same dosage of those agents plus diclofenac Na tab, 100 mg daily for 1 week (group B). Sixty two patients received the quadruple therapy for 2 weeks (group C). Eradication of the infection was assessed 4-6 weeks after completion of treatment by stool antigen assay for H. pylori.

While the rate of H. pylori eradication in the groups A and B was 66.7% and 82.1%, respectively (P = 0.062), the rate of H. pylori eradication in groups B and C were 82.1% and 82.3% respectively (P = 0.987).

It seems that diclofenac Na can shorten anti‑H. pylori regimens for 1 week. More investigations are needed for more clarification of the efficacy of NSAIDs for successful eradication of H. pylori. (IRCT code: IRCT201204059256N2)

In recent years، strategic planning has been developed in line with participatory democracy and communicative rationality approaches. These approaches have been criticized for their failure to provide a practical application in reality. Some scholars such as Gaventa & Cornwall and Ataov argue we should conceptualize action research as a methodological solution if we want to implement Communicative rationality، concentrating on mutual learning and involving interactions between multitudes of actors. Although it is clear that because of mutual relations and interdependency of scales and essentially multi-scalar character of places، the successful implementation of participatory democracy in one scale depends on other ones. The analysis of their action research approach shows they have only focused on use of the approach in a single geographical scale and neglected plural dimension of it. Therefore، it is essential to develop a harmonic and continual view for strategic planning and action research approaches by considering inter-scalar interaction and plural dimension of scale. Then، this article through developing a plural approach to scale and proposing the concept of «planning with scales» provides more extensive prospects for strategic planning and action research approach and highlights spatial aspects of these approaches. Spatial action research approach helps to equalize the inter-scalar relation of power، knowledge and decision making process in strategic planning and to improve it democratically.

Social security is a multi-dimensional concept including skeleton, population, social and economic dimensions. Integrated study and improvement of socioeconomic structure and skeleton characteristics of urban spaces affecting social security of urban regions is one of the major objectives of urban policy-making and management, due to its impact on experiences, security feeling and residents' satisfaction. The first step for improvement of social structure and skeleton elements of a region is identifying the areas which are more vulnerable compared to the other places. To that effect, the present research aims at reviewing and analyzing the socioeconomic structure and the model for the lands in region 3 of municipality of zone 12 by using Topsis multi-purpose analysis method, anthrop, Moren spatial correlation index in the software environment of GIS. The research is of descriptive-analytical type. The data resulted from public head count of 2006 was used for conducting the research. The analysis units in the research are the existing statistical blocks in region 3 of municipality zone 12.The results of the research indicates that the areas which scored the minimum based on the predetermined criteria have clearly divided the region into two parts, which can contribute to social integration, preventing formation of positive and constructive social networks to improve social security in the region. Statistical analysis of spatial pattern of the existing blocks in the region is conducted in the region based on the final score of every block and through using statistical index of Moren spatial correlation which expresses the spatial distribution of blocks in a cluster and concentrated way. In other words, the adjacent blocks differ from each other in terms of the utilized indexes. When there is a certain planning for organizing and improving social security, the pattern can be used for dissemination of positive social and cultural characteristics to enhance the quality of social (informal) surveillance and control. On the other hand, in case proper social planning and policy-making does not exist and due to heterogeneity in the existing social and skeleton structure it can pave the ground for expansion and penetration of undesirable socioeconomic features in the desirable blocks and finally lead to deterioration of safe places in the region.

It is true that citizens must be able to access public spaces irrespective of their gender and age differences. But social structures, social and physical disorder and personal characteristics of social groups (men and women) make their different perceptions of neighborhood safety, resulting in unequal use of public spaces. This study aimed to analyze above differences in terms of six subgroups according to age and gender variables using questionnaire in Neighborhood Nine of District Twelve, in the city of Tehran. The results show that with the exception of women 60 years of age and older, men use public spaces more than women. Pearson correlation coefficient indicates a significant relationship between use of public spaces and the perception of neighborhood safety. Also, analyzing factors affecting perception of neighborhood safety demonstrates social environment variables have more important role than personal characteristics in residents’ perception of safety by considering gender as a fixed variable. Accordingly, related social cohesion variables in women and related social support variables in men have the most effect on perception of neighborhood safety respectively.