Introduction

Most villagers in Iran are inhabiting inadequate houses with insufficiently ventilated devices, and unsanitary conditions in villages are becoming very serious. So much so that the lack of access to proper and standard housing-an indicator of rural development-has wrought psychological and social damage on village lives, distortion, and abnormality in the residential fabric of villages and finally, economic and social upheavals in the country. Rural housing in Ardabil County has not remained untouched by this rule, as most of the rural buildings of this County are constructed with mud and clay and less durable materials. Since this County lies within an earthquake-prone area, the very lack of resistance of rural houses has created a lot of problems for these villages every few years. Hence, retrofitting and providing suitable rural housing stands as one of the main strategies in development plans for the country. This urgent matter requires that challenges faced by the rural settlements of the County be solved in order to provide such housing which can withstand accidents, and thereafter, be livable. Identifying challenges in providing desirable rural housing is critical; the rationale being that the ground for creating and building resistant units against all sorts of issues and problems that plague rural housing is thusmade possible. That becomes a possible strategy to be put forth in terms of rural planning and raising the quality of life as security achievement in rural areas; Otherwise, with this necessity in mind, the present work assesses the challenges faced in providing desirable rural housing for Central Ardabi County villages.
 

Methodology

This study adopts a descriptive survey research method pertaining to quantitative research, with the applied purpose in mind. The research's statistical population is made up of rural households in the central part of Ardabil County. The specific sample villages were determined based on the two indicators (having a population of over 20 households; having some form of council/village management body). It is in this regard that, according to the available statistics (year 1400), the number of villages in the central part of Ardabil County is equal to 86, so for sampling purposes in accordance with the goals and hypotheses of the research, a stratified (multi-stage) technique was employed whereby the households served as the key criterion in estimating the sample size of the villages. Afterwards, by employing Cochran's formula, the sample size of households was determined to be 360 households, and the questionnaires were distributed among the respective villages in proportion to their number of households. For the purpose of data analysis, the structural equation test in Lisrel, Kruskal Wallis test, and ISDM method in SPSS were used.
 

Results

The results of the study indicate that about 10.28% of the respondents are on the weak perception side, 20.83% on average perception, 40.28% strong perception, and 28.61% on the very strong perception scale with regard to the challenges of rural housing. With regards to intravillage factors, the topmost factor load among physical-environmental challenges is the unavailability of temporary housing during the renovation and repair of existing houses with a factor load of 0.86, unavailability of communication networks and transportation with a factor load of 0.85, and the method of surface water collection system and sewage disposal (factor loading 0.82) whereby the economic challenges assess to poverty in rural areas (factor loading 0.85), villagers' capacity to save (factor loading 0.84) as well as the devaluation of the multiple and economic functions of rural housing (factor loading 0.82) and in regard to socio-cultural challenges, the reversal is the absence of a construction culture with respect to new building methods in the village (factor loading 0.85), upkeep of the traditional fabric in the villages (factor loading 0.82), followed by lack of access of settlements to health, social, cultural, recreational, and other good services...(factor loading 0.77). In other words, these indicators play maximum roles in changing the hidden variables (inside rural housing challenges). , In the area of extraneous rural challenges, the criteria and regulations regarding obtaining bank guarantees accounted as having the highest factor load of 0.83, following by other parameters which include: value of loans taken (0.82) and lack of availability of materials at fair price (0.80) scored within the socio-cultural challenges pertaining to a lack of teamwork and entrepreneurial spirit (loading 0.83), lack of equity and parity between rural and urban housing (loading 0.81), and weak engagement and opportunities of new media and innovations (loading 0.75), highest among management challenges to do with the problems of lacking local building models for housing-not-being-supported by rural life (0.88), same reconstruction and improvement models applied in all terrains (0.87), and relief and welfare committees' influence on citing the interest for improving household housing (0.84). In other words, these indicators have played the highest role in the changes of hidden variables (non-rural housing challenges).
 

Discussion and Conclusion

The first things that brought about severe depression are housing which has had a significant effect on the quality of human life. The importance attached to housing has made it become an area of interest over the ages, and its attributes have, at different times, been improved through different methods and technologies. And in particular regard to rural housing, there should be various plans on this regard. This is, in fact, the study, which was undertaken in order to show the challenges in achieving desirable rural housing in the villages centering across Ardabil city: An exploration that is unparalleled for its aims, as the specific characteristics of the particular place make it quite unique compared to studies concerning rural housing. The analysis results of the study revealed that according to factor load estimates about the intra-rural factors, the most significant intra-rural housing challenges are the physical-environmental variable (effect coefficient being 0.943), the economic variable (effect coefficient being 0.919), and the socio-cultural variable (effect coefficient being 0.889). The most important intra-rural challenges for housing thus are the managerial variable (effect coefficient being 0.928), followed by the economy (0.907), and the socio-cultural one (effect coefficient being 0.835) for the challenges of housing outside rural areas.