Urban Housing Inequality in Iranian Provinces

In an economy, inequality refers to having two or more clear feature of economic sectors, social, political and cultural areas are debatable. This study uses urban housing indices to investigate the situation of housing inequality in Iranian provinces and the ranking of the areas during 2006, 2011 and 2016 using these indices. In this study, 8 physical-social and economic indices are used to address the current situation. For weighting the indices, Shannon Entropy method was used. TOPSIS and Pearson correlation coefficient were respectively used for ranking of unequal development in the provinces and testing the hypotheses. The results of the urban housing development level of the provinces indicate that the urban housing development has improved during the period of 10 years 2006-2016. However, the important thing is that the level of development variance increased in the different provinces. This increase means more divergence and inequality in the level of urban housing development in different provinces. The hypothesis test also shows that urban housing development has declined with increasing urbanization. Research findings can help policymakers and planners to formulate appropriate policies and programs in the field of development and social justice in the housing sector.