Analysis of the Factors Affecting Urban Space Commodification from Citizens' Perspectives (Case Study: Tabriz City)

Document Type : Research article

Authors

1 PhD Student in Geography and Rural Planning, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

2 PhD of Geography and Rural planning, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction
Commodification of space means that space is constantly being produced and reproduced as a means of production for profit. Metropolis of Tabriz in recent years have been severely subject to commodity space due to the rapid population growth, the land and housing stock exchange, the privatization of public spaces, the expansion of vacant houses and inflation. Nowadays, uncontrolled land use change is one of the major challenges of the agricultural section of Iran. Hence, a big part of agricultural lands and also forest lands turned out of production cycle and natural resource. Mahmoudabad town as one of the agricultural areas of Iran is not an exception. Tourism especially in recent years caused intensification of land use change, house selling and production, place and tourism town production. These cases make rural areas of Mahmoudabad town as a commodity that tourism can buy it and use it as they want. The purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting the urbanization of Tabriz urban space. The main objective of this investigation is to recognize the second home tourism economics, as well as social and environmental factors affecting intensification of space commodification process in that area.  
In economics, a commodity is an economic good or service that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats the goods as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. The price of a commodity good is typically determined as a function of its market as a whole: well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Most commodities are raw materials, basic resources, or agricultural products such as iron ore, sugar, or rice.
Space commodification means that we can buy and sell the space for profits in the market. Actually space commodification notifies that land house and places are commodity. In this way, in addition to space, , culture and environment of space are also commodifying.   
Methodology  
The research method applied in this study was descriptive-analytical. This research analyzed economic, environmental and social-cultural variables affecting space commodification. In this study, three hundreds and seventy nine questionnaires are completed in Mahmoudabad town level. SPSS 22 software was employed to analyze the data extracted from the questionnaires.  
Results and discussion
Based on the results, many different factors specially bank system, tax system and government policy had very negative impacts on town farming and production process. Among the bank factors, increase in interest rate can lead to serious damage to agriculture and pressure to farmer. Tax system cause attraction of more visitors to buy and sell land and take more profit from construction. There is no tax system about land selling and land buying expensive cars and houses. Government generally don’t help producers of rice and more help tourism and speculative. Therefore, we have attempted to propose suitable solution by recognizing these factors.   

Keywords

References

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Geographical Urban Planning Research (GUPR)
Volume 6, Issue 4
January 2019
Pages 791-807

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