چكيده به لاتين
The concept of inequality, especially spatial inequality has attracted the attention of many regional and urban planners. With regard to the two main objective and subjective aspects of this concept, it is evident that the majority of studies on inequality have mainly focused on the objective dimension. However, this question might be worth posing that how and under the influence of what factors “the feeling of inequality”, as an indicator of subjective dimensions of inequality, is formed. The present research, by investigating a collection of Isfahan city as its case study, tries to realize whether the feeling of inequality is formed in an intra-city scale or it is a cause of difference in different cities in the region. In other words, the question is whether the feeling of inequality (as an independent variable) is due to a lack of services within cities (compared with other cities in the region) or under the influence of inequality between citizens in each city (or both). Accordingly, the main objective of the present research is to examine the relationship between the indicators of inequality in both subjective and objective dimensions.
The research method in this study is developmental research method and it is mainly qualitative. In this framework, unequal spatial dimensions have been investigated in four different ways. The first method has assessed inequality by measuring the difference between cities in their levels of city service based on the index of centralization. In the second method, the inequality of income in each city is calculated using the Gini coefficient index. In the third method, the income inequality in the city of Isfahan has been taken into account, but this time the whole area is integrated together. Finally, the fourth method has considered measuring the feeling of inequality based on the residents’ opinions. The sample size in this study was 947 , with random sampling method.
The results show that there is no meaningful relationship between the feeling of inequality from the perspective of residents and the index of centralization. In other words, the quantitative comparison of the number of functions and settlement services in the region does not necessarily determine residents’ satisfaction levels with services. In contrast, the feeling of inequality has a direct and meaningful relationship with the balanced distribution of income between all walks of life in society. In other words, every individual in society considers their peers as the basis for their comparisons, and if they are in an acceptable income position (regardless of their position in the whole region), they will have lower levels of feeling inequality. Finally, efforts have been made to investigate the findings and prioritize indicators based on their correlation with the subjective dimension of inequality and Strategic planning is carried out with the aim of reducing spatial inequality in the region.
Keywords: spatial inequality, subjective dimension, index of centralization, Gini coefficient, Isfahan conurbation.
