مسکن و محیط روستا (Dec 2014)
Identifying and Analyzing the Influential Factors on Demand for Rural Housing Credits with Focus on Physio-Spatial Factors Case Study: The Settlements of Varavi District, Mohr County
Abstract
In recent decades, monetary policy, especially in developing countries, has been one of the most important governmental strategies to achieve sustainable rural development. In Iran, the formation and payment of micro-credits monetary funding is one of the most important approaches considered in local societies with various aims such as poverty alleviation expansion of social justice the expansion of income-increasing activities for low income people improving the standards of living conditions building resistant houses and simplifying the rural development process increased quality of life in rural area improving the viability and vitality of rural settlements enhancing the resilience of rural housing against natural disasters such as floods and earthquake creating a pleasant rural environment beautification of the architectural features of houses and physical spaces in rural areas and finally achieving sustainable rural development. In Iran, the monetary credits for housing construction in rural area are paid to the inhabitants of villages under support of the government developmental actions, which are performed in framework of rural development process at national, regional and local scales. This plan started with the Fourth Economic, Social and Cultural Development Program of Islamic Republic of Iran by the Housing Foundation of Islamic Republic of Iran and has been executed for nearly seven years. The present research, with reference to the objectives reviewed earlier, attempts to identify and analyze the influential factors on demand for rural housing credits with focus on physical-spatial factors in the settlements of Varavi district, Mohr township, Shiraz province. The research uses a descriptive-analytical methodology and is based on quantitative and qualitative data. Hence, firstly, the housing conditions of eleven settlements of the district are identified through field data and conducting plans which are then compared with the numbers of the applicants for housing credits in each village. Then the indexes of central location, population, population growth rate, distance, and access system in demand for housing credits are investigated. The results indicate that there is a big difference between the village inhabitants’ needs for housing loans and their demand for loans in central and adjacent settlements, so much so that nearly 80 percent of the applicants for rural housing credits are located in the two settlements of Varavi (the center of the district) and Khouzi (the center of the rural district). The correlation coefficient for receiving housing credits with the central location rate index is 0.0981 and the index for the number of the settlements is 0.0954 indicating the meaningfulness of these indexes with demand for housing credits. But in the index, the population growth rate is -0.183, the condition of old and dilapidated houses is -0.531 and the index of access to focal centers is -.0577 which indicates the lack of a meaningful correlation with the demand for credits.
