In Iran, development measures are carried out in villages with the priority of physical-spatial development based on the rural guide plan. Rural guide plan or in other words comprehensive rural development plan has been prepared and implemented with the aim of facilitating the cultural, economic, and social development of the village; providing social, productive and welfare facilities; improving the physical condition of the village; and refining villagers' housing and environmental and public services. Since the Second Development Plan, rural guide plans were considered by the policymakers and planners. Moreover, considering the importance of rural guide plan, it is necessary to evaluate the impacts of their implementation by identifying the strengths and weaknesses, to modify the conceptual framework of the plan or make a fundamental change in its framework. Therefore, this applied research, which is qualitative in terms of method (based on grounded theory approach), evaluates the consequences of rural guide plan in the rural settlements of Iran. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews with 25 experts and coded (open, central, and selective) and analyzed using MaxQuda. The results show that the process of preparing and implementing rural guide plan in rural settlements of the country has positive consequences (such as improving the circulation system, structural improvement of housing, the emergence of new economic activities, spatial equality in using infrastructure and welfare services, regularity in physical expansion and quality improvement of environment) and negative (such as low attention to the ownership of villagers, weakening of cultural elements, commodification of the village, increasing the size of villages around the metropolis, destroying natural-ecological resources, weakening the cohesion and visual diversity of the physical fabric). Moreover, the results of this research emphasize that the negative consequences of this plan are affected by trends such as government-centeredness, weak organizational interactions, weak expertise of consultants in preparing the plan, weak empowerment of the local community, weak attention to the participation of the local community, and the dominance of the modernist attitude on the preparation of the plan.
Keywords: consequentialist evaluation, rural guide plan, rural settlement in Iran.
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