JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT
Year:2014 | Volume:2 | Issue:6|Papers Count:10

Maintaining historical houses, as symbolic identity phenomena, is a must and today it seems as if the owners of such houses are the key figures in maintaining them; however, passing the laws and regulations for the maintenance of historical houses seem to have limited their ownership rights. Besides limiting factors in property development, there should be encouraging motives so that the maintenance process could be fostered. Thus, the current article, aiming at focusing on the individual benefit to help serve the social benefit, is to evaluate the passed law, numbered 28/91/2293, by Isfahan Islamic city council on - exemptions for repair tax, parking-lot elimination, and VAT on function change of all historical buildings of the city of Isfahan. The current research was conducted on the historical district of Jolfa in Isfahan. The research is practical/applied, purpose-wise and among field research, method-wise. Data analysis was done upon opportunity-cost analysis and the required statistical data and documents were collected in Winter 2012. The results indicated that, by comparing maintaining opportunity-cost and the subsidy granted as a result of the passed law for the very district, for 47 percent of the historical properties, the granted subsidy is sufficient enough for opportunity-cost maintenance and for the other properties, by increasing the opportunity for land efficiency, the difference between maintaining opportunity-cost and the granted subsidy would increase; hence, the current law would not be effective enough to cover the maintaining opportunity-cost.

In some urban districts, population growth and, then, traffic increase and also the establishment of different industries have resulted in higher temperature in some districts than the others. Concentration of pollutants emitted from public transport and industries in different districts of the city have caused the increase in polluting gases and the resultant environmental temperature increase; an issue which forms Urban Heat Islands. Such conditions would jeopardize the next generations' economic profits and resources as well as social benefits, standing against the concept of sustainable development. Therefore, through field research and required studies, it would be possible to take required measures for the distribution of heat pattern in the city. The major purpose behind this research is identifying and studying pollutants and heat islands resulting from human functions in the city of Mahshahr and is preventing pollution of bio-resources via setting environmental planning and strategies. The current article aims at delineating the importance of paying attention to the issue of sustainable development in urban management. The current study makes use of field study and the research method is descriptive-inferrential, According to the collected data, the number of active industries in the city of Mahshahr exceeds 72 sections including chemical, petrochemical, metallurgical, non-metallurgical mineral, food, textile, and cellulosic industries which are significant, variety-wise. The major source of pollution in the city of Mahshahr, which taking role both in making the pollutants and in forming heat islands and temperature increase, is the industry section (75%) and the rest is from urban sources (heating systems, agriculture, transport, etc.). Thus, the more active the industries are, the more pollutants like carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon, sulfur monoxide, nitrogen oxide and atmospheric particulates are produced which have an undeniable role in temperature increase and the formation of heat islands in specific urban districts.

Tourism issues are widely and comprehensively the focus of attention for the governments worldwide and each with specific purposes to follow in tourism industry and with plans to make upon their potentialities. Tourists also expect that the concept of cost-value could be completely actualized in their trip process and a win-win interaction could be made between the tourist attraction and destination. In the current study, attempts have been made to identify tourism potentials of the county of Qazvin via SWOT matrix so that a better understanding would be made of the existing assets of the county. Through comparative study of such potentials against marketing mix model in tourism, a matrix of the coordination and overlapping of the two approaches is achieved and then through Fuzzy Topsis Method, the prioritizing of the mix elements would be possible. The research method was descriptive-explorative and the required data were collected through field research and via questionnaires. The results indicated that the obtained elements were processes/plans, people/staff, participation/individualization, place and distribution, physical evidence/packaging, promotions/encouragements, product, and price which were hierarchically prioritized and through which and by applying a systemic approach, it IS possible to develop tourism economy of the county of Qazvin.

Undoubtedly, entrepreneurship plays a key role in urban economy and in achieving economic development and through implementing the strategy for economic development, a proper situation can be set for urban management. Due to the effect of entrepreneurship and its factors on economy and urban management, the current research aims at naming entrepreneurship factors and standardizing them. The data were mostly collected from library sources and through field research and a questionnaire was used to evaluate the extent of the entrepreneurship. The population, 420, included the managers, high-ranking directors and the other staff in the district 7 of the municipality of Tehran from among whom 201 were selected through random stratified sampling. Besides, the validity and reliability indices of the questionnaire were significantly high (0.9171), making it a proper instrument for evaluating the extent of entrepreneurship in other organizations. The results indicated that such factors as creativity, independency, dominance, extroversion, commercialization talent, flexibility, need for achievement, and learning have great effects on entrepreneurship.

Attending to the location of establishing the centers for financial and trade activities is one of the most parameters of profitability and success for such centers and achieving such a goal is possible through having the exact geographical/Iocational details. However, in most cases, collecting and having access to such details is time-consuming and costly. Thus, economic ranking of the districts in metropolises, firstly, provides the managers and economic planners with a general view of the economic status of urban districts so that, following identifying economically prosperous districts, they can decide on exact location of establishing financial and trade centers, upon priorities. The current research utilized multi-attribute decision-making and ranking methods for economic ranking of urban districts after identifying contributory economic indexes and parameters in the city of Tehran and the eigenvector for determining the index loading. The results obtained from multi-attribute method, via Gama Correlation Coefficient, and those from economic zoning of the 22 districts of the city of Tehran in the geographical information system were compared and contrasted.

High unemployment rate is one of the problems Iran's economy has in urban regions. Investment in the sections which have the highest potentiality for creating employment can take the main role in solving unemployment problem. Therefore, the current research aims at investigating employment-creating of economic sections of Sistan and Balouchestan in urban regions. To this aim, via regional input-output table, factor analysis, and Fuzzy logic, key sections of the economy of province were identified in urban regions upon employment rate and the previous bonds, total and direct pull of employment, and potential power of employment were made use of. The results indicated that in the urban regions of the province, the building-construction sections and wholesale and retail sections provide the highest rate of employment. Also, the weak intersectional bonds have made Sistan and Balouchestan Province import the workforce from other provinces and countries.

Identifying the current obstacles in the business atmosphere of urban economy and determining methods of improving it are among the primary measures for achieving operational strategies in improving economic activities. The current study aims at strategic planning to improve business atmosphere in the holy city of Mashhad with regard to its religious tourism potentiality. Therefore, the strong and weak points as well as the opportunities and threats of the business atmosphere of the city were identified based upon focusing on religious tourism through SWOT and quantitative matrix of strategic planning. Following filling-out a questionnaire by 23 experts from related organizations, operational measures and proper executive policies were decided upon. The results indicated that the strategic situation of the business atmosphere of urban economy of the holy city of Mashhad, emphasizing the condition for attracting religious tourists, is in a defensive status; therefore, the strategy for supporting the active members in the field of religious tourism is among defensive strategies for this domain. Besides, deregulation, reducing official bureaucracy, and unifying organizational management are among the most important factors in devising strategies for improving business atmosphere in the holy city of Mashhad.

The purpose of an urban management system is to provide and establish an appropriate atmosphere for a convenient, secure, and efficient life for the citizens in accordance with social and economic features and such an issue necessitates a unified management system. Thus, the current research aims at investigating the structural elements of Tehran urban management model and determining the type of correlations between them. The current research utilized a deductive-inductive method and for the statistical tests, quantitative analyses model was suggested. The population included all high-ranking managers of Tehran municipality who enjoyed related experience in different municipal domains and were counted expert. The results indicated that while urban management system enjoyed linear-vertical relation with other sectors like an open system, it faced some problems in terms of planning and organizing. Moreover, the type of relation and the proper coordination mechanism between municipality and the related sectors were determined upon specific objectives. Finally, suggestions were put forth for improving urban management system.

Spatial development of the city centers across the nation has started since a decade ago and is quickly increasing and the role of financial factors, especially facilities offered by banks, is not ineffective in making it happen much faster. Thus, in the current research, for a 10- year period (from 2001 till 2011), the role of different methods of financing, e.g. facilities offered by banks, governmental supports, and municipalities income, in spatial development of the city centers of Ilam province, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Econometrics Model was mentioned. The results indicated that Ilam enjoys the highest level of structural development coming together with municipality income and had received the maximum amount of governmental support. The results of model evaluation refer to the fact that from among different methods of financing spatial development, governmental supports and facilities offered by banks have a significant positive effect on spatial development of the city centers of the province of Ilam, while municipalities income fail to have such an effect.

The current study aimed at making an investigation into the extent of applying triple Mintzberg Managerial Roles (interpersonal, information and decision-making) among the managers of the City Bank. The research method is descriptive- survey and population included all the managers and deputies of the City Bank amounting to 591 from among whom 232 were selected through Cochran's formula and simple random sampling. The survey was done via a I5-item researcher- developed questionnaire. For validity and reliability, content validity and Cronbach's Alpha were utilized, respectively and the obtained index of reliability was 0.82 for all factors. To analyze the collected data one way analysis of variance and T -test were run. The results indicated that from the respondents' point of view the extent of applying managers' roles was too high. Further, via the analysis of variance, it was made clear that there was a significant difference concerning the extent of applying information role in terms of the degree level and also that of applying interpersonal and decision-making roles in terms of managerial records.