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Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences, 8(9) August 2014, Pages: 118-127 AENSI Journals Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences ISSN:1995-0772 EISSN: 1998-1090 Journal home page: www.aensiweb.com/ANAS Ranking of the cities in Khoozestan province based on development indexes using Shannon Entropy model and VIKOR technique Mehdi Momeni and Zeinab Mousavi Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: One of the effects of underdevelopment and barriers of development is regional Received 25 June 2014 disparity or inequality in economic and social fields. Nowadays, disparity reduction in Received in revised form using resources and facilities is considered as one of the most important criteria of 1 July 2014 sustainable development in all of the country’s regions. The present study aimed at Accepted 31 August 2014 determining the priority of the cities in Khoozestan province, Iran, according to the Available online 15 September development indexes based on the statistics in 2011. In order to obtain the rate of 2014 regional disparities in the cities of the province, a combined approach of multi-criteria decision-making models was used. In this way, the weight of indexes was calculated Keywords: using the Shannon entropy technique and after prioritizing the criteria by the weight of Development indexes, Shannon major criteria, each of the cities was prioritized by VIKOR technique. The statistical entropy model, VIKOR model, population of this study includes 23 cities in Khoozestan province. They have been Khoozestan province investigated based on 6 main indexes and 26 sub-indexes. To achieve this, the indexes were examined based on quantitative methods. The findings of this study show the weighting of indexes and prioritization of the cities in the province in terms of the amount of suitability, and regret of the prioritization of each city in the province explained in the levels of development. © 2014 AENSI Publisher All rights reserved. To Cite This Article: Mehdi Momeni and Zeinab Mousavi., Ranking of the cities in Khoozestan province based on development indexes using Shannon Entropy model and VIKOR technique. Adv. in Nat. Appl. Sci., 8(9): 118-127, 2014 INTRODUCTION Development is defined as movement from the present situation to another situation which provides more chances and facilities for effective use of resources (Momeni, 2008). Although reducing regional disparities and inequalities has been one of the policies of the country’s civil programs and is seen as headlines in journals and magazines as the main aim, the failure to do this is because fighting against each problem would be impossible without recognizing the problem fully and this reveals its importance and necessity (Gharabaghian, 1996). In fact, development must be considered as a multi-dimensional process which involves fundamental changes in social structure, the public attitudes, national organizations, accelerating and increasing economic growth, decreasing inequality and disparity, and eradicating absolute poverty. Development must show that the social system set has changed from the previous adverse form of life and is compatible with the fundamental various needs, requests, and desires of individuals and social groups in the system and is propelling to a life situation or state which is “better” financially and spiritually. In general, development is movement from the “unstable” present situation to a “stable” favorable situation that leads to an increase in the social, economic, politic, cultural, and environmental welfare indexes and directs human societies to growth and high efficiency (Mirzaee, 2005). It is worth noting that notions of growth and progress are often brought up when defining development and are sometimes used interchangeably. Growth means quantitative increase and is often used in economic issues and discussions of the increase in consumption of materials, while development means qualitative increase and actualizing a potential power (Frazier, 1997). Nowadays, theorists bring up the necessities of regional planning in order to achieve balanced development and believe that balanced development is one which provides the best conditions and facilities for comprehensive progress and minimizes the differences between interregional (within regional) and intraregional (between regional) life quality to the least and finally eradicates them (Bhati, 2004). Paul Stertin believes that the ultimate goal of development is providing continuous improvement in individuals’ state and situation and grants its benefits to everyone (Masoomi Ashkoori, 1997). In this regard, the development of the cities in a province many not be an appropriate process sometimes due to heterogeneous spatial distribution of resources as Corresponding Author: Mehdi Momeni, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail: [email protected] 119 Mehdi Momeni and Zeinab Mousavi, 2014 Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences, 8(9) August 2014, Pages: 118-127 well as economic, and social factors (Molaee, 1996). Therefore, in the planning process for achieving development and being put on its track, recognizing and understanding conditions and requirements of human communities and societies and their needs from different dimensions is among the essential measures which must be taken in this regard (Ziari, 1997). In spite of its considerable natural wealth and resources, Khoozestan province suffers from a wide regional developed and undeveloped dichotomy. The regional development should provide better conditions and facilities for all people, and reduce the differences of life quality between regions. Thus, the characteristic of regional development is being comprehensive and not being limited to mere economic aspects and giving priority to equal distribution in all regions and reducing the intensity of differences between the living standards (Magobonj, 1989).The purpose of this study was to evaluate the development of the cities in Khoozestan province in 2011 using the two VIKOR and Shannon entropy techniques. Research Background: Spatial inequality refers to a situation in which multiple different spatial or geographical units are at different levels regarding some variables (Kanbur et al, 2005).There are several reasons for the spatial disparities between countries such as history, natural resources, human resources, political and local economy, and culture which overlap with each other and are synergistic (Chalabi, 1996). At the same time, development includes all the changes of the social system, changes that bring a society from the current adverse situation to a human situation (Hosseinzadeh, 2001). Development is a multi-dimensional process that brings about reorganization and different orientation of the entire economic and social system. There are two general frameworks of development theories: basic and modern frameworks of development. The evolutionary school of development, modernization theories, Marxist perspectives of development, and dependency theories are within the basic framework (Azkia, 2002). In all these schools, due to the dominance of the top-down approach and the sovereign role of government in development planning (Sarraafi, 1998), using quantitative methods and mathematical models by planners is inevitable for the ease of understanding the complexity of the problems in different areas (Afraakhte, 1998). In contrast, the modern framework emphasizes on bottom-up approaches of development by adopting attitudes such as local communities, the role of non-governmental organizations (NGO), gender issues, justice and democracy, citizen participation, and most importantly, the environment and sustainable development (Hodder, 2000). In this regard, the development of cities in a province may not be an appropriate procedure due to the heterogeneous spatial distribution of resources and resources as well as a variety of economic and natural factors (Molaee, 2008). Therefore, as the overall goal of development is excellence in all aspects of human societies(Asayesh, 1996), recognizing and understanding the requirements and circumstances of human societies and their needs in various aspects are necessary measures in the planning process to achieve development and being put on its path (Ziari, 2008). A lot of researches have been carried out on the assessment of regional disparities and inequalities globally and nationally, one of them is the World Development Report 2009. This report mentioned the centralization of economic activities in countries, especially in cities and spatial disparities and inequalities in developing countries are considered. Based on the findings of this research, economic growth has always been unequal and imbalanced and the policies to strike spatial balance will only lead to poverty reduction UNU-WEDER, Nel, and Regerson projects (Dadashpoor, 2011). Several studies have been conducted related to the levels of development of regions and provinces, disparities and inequalities, and regional imbalances in Iran. In a research about the degree of development of the cities in Mazandaran province, Boroozian stated that in the period of 1976 to 1986 the intensity of development reduced in the cities of the province and the improvement of the development indexes has increased in deprived cities (Boroozian, 1995). Zarabi et al. (2009) have carried out a research about developing