survey of rural linkages with zahedan city and its impact on the rural development levels

introduction it this study it is attempted to find out the nature of relationships between rural-urban linkages by statistical analysis regarding the impact of the city on the levels of rural development. rural-urban relationships in the developing countries have rapidly expanded in the recent decades. because, city and village comprise an integrated system, and the development of each part of this system regardless to the other part(s) is irrational and impossible. un-habitat (2004) announced that cities are engines of rural development. many scholars and researches in iran and abroad have emphasized on the effects of cities on rural development and they have suggested a simultaneous rural-urban planning in regional level. methodology the authors have employed field survey method of inquiry. data for the statistical analysis, were obtained from a variety of sources, primary and secondary data. primary data generated by the questionnaires technique, case interviews and field observations. secondary data have been obtained from the published texts and researches, governmental reports, journals, census, unpublished records, etc. of the public administration and semi- governmental agencies, as well as the internet sources. the basic analysis unit is the villages with a population of 20 households and over, which comprise 243 villages in zahedan township. complex random sampling (in the first step, stratified sampling was used and in the second step, simple random sampling was applied). sample size is 90 villages which constitutes 45 percent of the total villages. results examination of significant relationship between these variables shows that there are significant relationship between zahedan’s economic impact and rural development levels in the region either in spearman&apos;s test (r= 0.403, sig = 0.000) or kendall’s tau-b test(r= 0.376, sig = 0.000). on this basis, relationships are at the 99 percent confidence level for both the tests. these correlations are in the medium level and a kind of positive i.e., wherever the degree of economic factor of zahedan city with rural areas have been more, those villages have been in higher level of rural development. out of 6 variables of this factor, 3ones have significant relationships others have not. it means that 3 variables cause direct impacts and 3 variables cause indirect impacts. examination of significant relationship between zahedan’s impact of socio-cultural factor and rural development levels reveals that there are positive significant relationships between them with 99 percent confidence level for both the tests. it means that, wherever the degree of socio-cultural factor connections of zahedan city with rural areas have been higher, the corresponding villages have been in the higher level of rural development. out of 5 variables of this factor, 4 variables form significant relationships and only one of them does not so. it means that 4 variables have direct impact and 1 variable has indirect impact. examination of significant relationship between zahedan’s politico- administrative factors impact and rural development levels reveals that there are significant relationships between in 99 percent confidence level for both the tests. it means that, the more degree of administrative factor connections of zahedan city with rural areas, the higher level of rural development. out of 4 variables of this factor, 3 variables have significant positive relationships with rural development levels. multiple linear regression has been used for multiple correlation coefficient between dependent variables and independent ones which is r = 0.853 at p< 0.01 significance level. therefore, there is a significant correlation between rural development levels and independent variables (impact of the city) with 99 percont confidence. adjusted r square = 0.694, which it means that 69.4 percent of the variance in rural development levels has been determined by ten independent variables. hence, the impact of zahedan city as a generative city on rural development levels is examined. conclusion zahedan is a primate city up to a radius of 900 km. in iran. despite a modest primate city, zahedan&apos;s economy and functional impact is much bigger than its size. zahedan region is more than a developing region, because 45.6 percent of villages are in the developing category, 26.7 percent villages are in the developed category, and 27.7 percent villages in are in the deprived one. out of 15 independent variables, 10 variables had a positive significant correlation with the levels of rural development (lrd). the other 5 independent variables indicate not significant correlation on the lrd. it means that, these variables have indirect impact on the lrd in the region. the multiple correlation coefficients among them also show a positive significant correlation with r square adjusted 0.694. hence, the impact of zahedan city on the lrd is positive and generative with 69.4 per cent. among the major component effects, the most important ones were the politico-administrative component effects or the government role with the number of official branches in the village and economic component effects with number of rural loan borrowers and the number of rural inhabitants with bank accounts variables. hence, the results of this components show that the government has the main role in steering the villages which are deprived in rural development. for optimizing the results of positive impact of city, it is suggested that the planners while making rural development and plans, should pay relatively more attention to the impact of government and economic factors. rural development needs to open interest free rural development banks with islamic system in few nodal villages to mobilize the capital flow in their respective nodal regions. emphasis should be put on improving educational levels with priority on professional training and workshops in the nodal villages. this will create new capacities of work force for the regional development and planning. rural development oriented government at policies need to invest more by the government in big employment generative projects in the region and encourage the entrepreneurs for taking their ideas and projects to the villages at first and then gradually absorbing the villagers. forming and organizing of ngos as well as expert cooperatives is necessary as well.