Role of Evolutions and Political Divisions on Urban Development Using SAR Model (Case Study: Golestan Province)

Introduction Nowadays, governments and their decisions are one of the most influential factors in formation of habitational hierarchy process and relations. Most of urban planners believe that effective influence of governmental investments in megacities’ construction make governments able to affect the growth of medium sized citiesthrough decentralization or aggregation to create a more balanced distribution of urban population and creational- economical endeavors (sarafi, 1998:132). Country divisions, due to its nature and performance, are a type of spatial organization for dividing the country’s spaces and would facilitate the sovereignty of the government. In addition, regional preparation programs are present to synchronize the existing resources with different purposes in any environment in order to achieve the best utilization of the equipment available. Golestan province was detached from the Mazandaran province in 1997 and became acknowledged as a new province in the hierarchy system of the country. After that the city of Gorgan as the center of this province has received many enjoyments in sustainable development in all its aspects. The goal of this present study is to evaluate the level of political divisions of the country’s effectivity (Golestan becoming a province) on urban development amongst the cities of the Golestan province which is conducted through the descriptive- analytic and field study method. Hence, the main question of the study is that the political divisions of the country have been effective on urban development amongst the cities of the province after detachment of Golestan and acknowledging it as a single province.    Methodology The methodology in this study is a combination of analytic and discovery methods using field studies and surveying techniques to conduct the evaluation of dispersion coefficients utilizing indicators in the area of economic, social, cultural, political, and environmental structures in the province by multiple objective decision making methods. This was conducted by rating of the areas using the rate of acquiring development criteria for each of these regions. The data collection method is conducted using field study and the main source is the net data information of statistical yearbook of Golestan province. To indicate the total information from families’ states, the sustainability principles and criteria of the areas were examined. Eventually, the GIS software was used to demonstrate the locational and spatial results of the study.   Results and discussion In order to evaluate the effectivity of developments and political divisions in the Golestan province and the level of its effectivity on urban development, we analyzed the six aspects of development including economic, social, cultural, political, human issues and urban infrastructure development and its effectivity in fourteen townships of this province. In fact, the purpose of this research was to address the impacts of new administrative divisions, by which Golestan become an independent province,on development level and the rate of effectivity of development planings. Based on the SAR method, the Gorgan City as the center of the province with the score equal to 0.6 has the highest level of development and the Kalaleh City with the coefficient equal to 5.24 has the least level of development amongst the cities of Golestan province.   Conclusion According to the results of the research, it can be conducted that the political administration development and divisions has significant unfluence on urban development in the Golestan province. This study indicated that multiple objective decision making methods and the analytic model of SAR can successfully evaluate the level of effectivity of new political developments of Golestan province on the development process through six aspects. Finally, based on the SAR method it was determined that the Gorgan City with the coefficient equal to 0.6 had the highest level of development and after that the cities of Bandar Turkmen and Gonbad-e- Kavoos are in the next rates in development. Also the Kalaleh City with the coefficient equal to 5.24 had the lowest level of development amongst the cities of the Golestan province.