Document Type : Research-Case Study
Authors
1 Professor of Geography and Urban Planning, Department of Geography, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
2 Ph.D. Student in Spatial Planning, Department of Geography, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
Abstract
Access to national and regional development is a lofty aspiration of every society and nation, which calls for a deep understanding of the status and resources of the country and society so that future plans are geared toward sustainable development. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between regional development and competitiveness in border towns of West Azerbaijan. This is an applied study that is descriptive-analytical in nature. Library and field methods were used to collect research data. Data analysis was conducted quantitatively using EXCEL, OPA, GIS, and Meta-SWOT software. CoCoSo multi-criteria decision-making model was used to rank border towns, the K-Means Cluster method was adopted to cluster border towns, and Meta-SWOT was used to explore regional competitiveness. The results suggest that based on the distribution of integrated criteria in West Azerbaijan province, this province follows the core-periphery model. Thus, facilities and services, rather than being fairly distributed at the provincial level and in border towns, have been unfairly distributed, so that the bulk of services have been distributed in Urmia and Khoi, respectively. Further, the state of regional competitiveness shows that Urmia is far distinct from other border towns in two differentiating dimensions of resources and capabilities, i.e., development and regional competitiveness. The persistence of this process over time would lead to severe divergence in the border towns, which can directly affect demographic distribution in the province, fueling the migration of residents from less-developed towns to other more-developed ones.
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