Impact of Zahedan city on the levels of rural development in Zahedan region

Abstract

The present study has accomplished an empirical verification of the hypotheses. The study has identified the generative or positive role of Zahedan city in its rural region. Zahedan is a primate city with a small population of 5.7 Lakhs. It is only the large city upto a radius of 900 km in the southeastern part of Iran. This indicates an overall absence of urban gravity in the southeast. The whole province of Sistan and Baluchestan is a rugged mountainous area. Within the province, Zahedan region is topographically a semi-mountainous region of small and isolated plains. Climatologically, it is an arid region with very low rainfall and extreme seasons. Culturally, the region is inhabited by different tribes who have cross-border relations and contacts because of their proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Under these broad outlines, the present study has examined the impact of Zahedan city on the rural development levels in the Zahedan Region. To examine the city impact on its surrounding region, it is important to study the city size and function, rural-urban linkages, infrastructural facilities, rural settlement hierarchy and the distance of the villages from the city. The demographic and cultural personality of the villages also plays a significant role in their interaction with the city. An evaluation of all these characteristics gives us an empirical understanding of the City and the City Region. A region is an integrated system of social, economic and physical relationships. It is not merely an agglomeration of scattered and unrelated settlements.The socio- economic personality of Zahedan region is largely a product of the forward and backward rural-urban linkages and the infrastructural facilities. These relations are established through rural urban interaction which allows rural areas to get benefited from city services, infrastructural facilities, and economic activities in cities. These linkages determine the regional accessibility or isolation.