URBAN STUDIES
Year:2014 | Volume:4 | Issue:12|Papers Count:7

Following the Municipality of Tehran’s attempt to becoming a social institution, community management plans for decentralization and citizen participation in municipal administration was implemented. The main question of this research is: how much of a sense-of-belonging exists among the residents of Ghezel ghalea neighborhood of Tehran? What factors affect or influence this phenomenon? And whether community involvement at the community level is associated with? Theoretical framework of the research drew on the paradigm provided by Macmillan and Chavys about community sense -of- belonging and Rahnema’s model of participation. Research population consisted of all the residents of Ghezel ghalea neighborhood of Tehran who were above 18 years of age. Cluster sampling was used to select the sample. Research findings showed that household cost of living, occupation, length of stay in the neighborhood and sense-of-belonging were significantly related. Housing status, gender, age, education, and marital status were not related to sense-of-belonging. Knowledge of the neighborhood was the most highly (0.52) related variable to community sense-of-belonging. No relationships were found between neighborhood utilization and neighborhood sense of belonging.

A fracture in social-spatial structure of cities in current developmental programs, the growth in urbanization, and changes in the nature and complexity of urban issues have led to an inefficiency in urban planning and management on a massive scale. Such an issue, more often than not, calls for a need to pay attention to lower levels and to have a bottom-up look to find a permanent solution to these urban issues. In this regard, attention to social capital as an available asset in the communities of such residences seems to be an appropriate solution to achieve sustainable development. The present study, utilizing social capital as an asset-based approach, aims at elaborating on sustainable local development and its components and the impact on sustainability achievement at the neighborhood level in the Narmak neighborhood of the city of Tehran. To estimate sample size, Cochran’s formula was utilized, according to which 383 participants from Narmak neighborhood residents were randomly selected to be given questionnaires. The research is based on the hypothesis that there is a significant correlation between social capital in local communities and sustainable local development. The factors under investigation were extracted from national and international experiences and studies and tested using survey and questionnaire in Tehran’s Narmak neighborhood. To determine a relationship between social capital and sustainable local development, Pearson correlation test was used. The results indicated that the Pearson correlation coefficient between all the factors of social capital and those of sustainable development is over 92 percent, indicating a significant positive relationship among social capital and sustainable local development factors.

Municipal services planning cannot be successful unless it takes into account the issues of social justice based on all residents’ having access to city services. In fact, injustice is a type of inequality which is not generally beneficial. The research draws on Western et al.’s viewpoint that, social justice, conceptually and in terms of empirical research, concentrates on “procedural” and “distributive” Justice. This descriptive-explanatory research is performed using the survey method. It aims to study the association between residents’ access to municipal services and their sense of social justice. The research population included all Kermani residents 18-year-old and above, of which 384 members were selected using Cochran’s formula and a multi-level cluster sampling method. This research collected the data using a questionnaire. The results indicated that there was a significant negative association between education and sense of social justice. In fact, the more educated the people, the less their sense social justice (r=0.13, sig=0.02). There was also a significant relationship between social and distributive justice indices, and no significant relationship existed between social and procedural justice. Gender and age also had no significant relationship with various dimensions of social justice. A significant relationship of 0.001 existed between social justice and degree of accessibility to urban services. Overall, the regression analysis results indicated that the access level to municipal services explains 35% of the variation of sense of social justice.

Paying attention to the civic culture and its education is a new approach that most developed countries take to deal with the promotion of civic culture. Its generally positive results in sustainable development, prosperity and social and cultural developments have led developing countries to perceive the need for this issue and hence provide for necessary education and research in this area. The aim of this study was to investigate the culture of citizenship, with an emphasis on education for citizenship provided by the Aran & Bidgol Municipality. In this paper, culture of citizenship was measured through dimensions such as responsibility, participation, obeying rules and regulations. The research method is Survey and the sample included 180 residents of Aran & Bidgol. The results of the analysis of data indicated that there is a direct relationship between citizenship education and adherence to the culture of citizenship; and citizenship education plays an Effective role on the commitment of people to civic culture.

Tourism has long been developed in various forms in human society on the basis of individual’s motivations and/or the principle of travelling and movement. Fundamental changes in tourism can be traced to the industrial revolution which brought about a huge change in life and transportation systems. Currently, tourism activities are regarded as the fourth part of human activity after agriculture, industry and services. Sustainable tourism management seeks to improve the quality of life of local residents in tourist regions through optimizing local economic benefits, protecting the natural environment and providing good experiences for visitors. This requires systematic attention to the technical, cultural, political, economic, historical and environmental aspects in the move toward the use of tourist attractions in accordance with the current needs and preservation and sustainability of such resources for future. Due to historical and cultural attractions, cities are often considered as important tourism destinations. Thus, a large amount of tourism facilities including residence, food, transportation links and other tourism services are situated in cities. Isfahan, due to its high capacity of urban tourism has always been of interest to both internal and external stakeholders. Hence in order to develop tourism and for sustainable urban tourism, there is a need for planning and optimal management of utilization of urban tourism spaces. In this study, the effect of price indexes of tourism services, the quality of tourism services, organization of tourism spaces and management of tourism spaces on the development and sustainability of tourism in Isfahan have been investigated. Results showed that management of tourist areas with the rate of 0.76% and the prices of services with the rate of 0.63 had the highest and lowest share, respectively, compared with other variables in explaining the development of tourism in Isfahan.

It is difficult to live in a residential complex without cooperation and organizing collective action. Ignoring the importance of cooperation deactivates the effects of small and scattered investments of the residents, wastes small endeavors and collective assets and brings about an unsecure environment for individuals. As a result, it has been attempted to investigate residents’ perceptions of cooperation and its components through Grounded theory and interviewing residential complexes’ residents in Mashad city. Thus, Laleh residential compex was studied in the present research from different aspects and angels. Therefore, 35 semi- structured interviews were carried out. On the basis of the analysis of findings within the research paradigm, it was found that fragile cooperation constituted the core. Constraining structure was presented as the underlying conditions. The structures people may be able to influence but they have no control over them. Individual charactersitics such cooperation evasion, interactional gap, negativitism, and weak central control are among the causal conditions that lead to “fragile cooperation”. The consequences of such interactions is that even if clear norms and rules prevail in the complex and that there is a descipline in the complex, these conditions are very unstable. And in case there are few number of free riders, the mentioned common good can be easily lost.

Participation or the lack of it could seriously influence the planning of a city or district, meaning that it can slow down or accelerate the process of implementation of programs. Therefore, studying the factors that can influence residents’ level of participation in city affairs can help city planners to better cope with problems such as rural migration into the city, population explosion, and the like. Thus, the aim of the present article is to assess the influence of social variables that can affect the rate of citizens’ participation in city affairs in the city of Esfahan. This is a survey research that used a questionnaire to collect the needed data. The research population consisted of all Esfahani residents who were 18 years of age or above that resided in Esfahan District 13. Using a multi-stage cluster sampling technique, 180 individuals were selected as the sample. The results showed that institutional trust, social satisfaction, social safety, and length of stay, as independent variables, were significantly related to social participation, as the dependent variable. The socio-economic status of residents and type of residence were not related to social participation.