JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS
Year:2017 | Volume:1 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:7

Chaotic and disorganized development of the cities with a fast and unplanned process can lead to urban marginalization. This is one of the problems of urbanism in the third world countries. So this paper is trying to explore economic causes of marginalization in Isfahan, using four indicators and their welfare effects on the households. For this purpose, different regions of the city are divided into two groups: marginalized & other. Then four economic indicators of unemployment rate, illiteracy rate, land prices and migration rate are included as variables in treatment effects model. For studying welfare effects, 9 sub-indexes are used with different weights. Finally models are estimated by raw data of census questionnaires in 1390. According to the results, land prices and unemployment rate are negatively related with marginalization, and illiteracy rate and migration have a positive relationship with marginalization. For estimating the marginalized group's treatment effects model, this group is considered as the treatment and the non-marginalized is considered as the control group. Welfare is considered as the outcome variable in the model. According to the results, migration rate, illiteracy rate and marginalization have a reverse relationship with welfare whereas the price of land and unemployment rate is directly related to it.

The multiplicity and uncoordinated management in public and private organizations responsible for urban issues is one of the critical problems in urban management. Without an integrated urban management, effective administration of cities is impossible. So the present paper is trying to study the feasibility of achieving an integrated urban management in Isfahan. For this purpose, components of integrated urban management are identified and measured using self-made questionnaire. Our statistical population includes urban management executive agencies, involving in similar and overlapping activities in the field of management such as: municipality, local government, Telecommunication Company, Water and Sewage Company, and Gas and Electricity Distribution Company. For data analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results show that the most important factor for achieving integration is to have one single urban management unit. The most effective ways to make this happen include: cohesion, Equifinality, coordination, systematic approach, interaction between executive agencies in charge of urban affairs and realization of good governance in the city of Isfahan.

In the housing market, the supply of residential units is affected by factors such as workforce wages, building materials’ prices, financial credits and etc. Besides these factors, unique features of housing such as durablity, being heterogenous and being immovable can influence the supply. Moreover, residential units can be considered to have the quality of investment as well as the quality of consumption. In this paper, besides considering a production function which includes investment, the effects of opportunity costs on deciding for investment is captured by the model according to the modern theories in the housing market and using Locus supply approach and adjustment costs. In order to be able to capture the effect of unique features of housing, this function has been estimated for different region of the province. The result obtained from the estimation of the supply function in different areas, reveals that the housing supply in these regions is mostly influenced by the supply of land, and the elasticities of the supply of wages, financial credit supplies and housing prices are slow.

In this research, the effect of macroeconomic variables on the housing prices in Iran during 1972-2013 is studied using the ordinary least square (OLS) method. To do this, the effects of following variables on the housing prices are taken into account: urbanization rate, rental rate, per capita income, Maskan bank granted credits to housing sector, property tax, unemployment rate, GDP, government expenditures on housing provision, construction materials’ price index, and the number of issued building permits. As the results show, the urbanization rate, per capita income, Maskan bank granted credits to housing sector, property tax, unemployment rate and the construction materials’ price index have positive effects on the housing prices, while GDP Fluctuations, government expenditures on housing provision and the number of issued building permits, have negative effects on the housing prices. The housing prices are affected by urbanization rate, per capita income, rental rate and GDP in the first place, and secondly by construction costs. Finally government fiscal and monetary policies have insignificant effects on housing prices.

One of the main problems of municipalities in financing the projects and covering their costs is their too much dependency on property and excess density taxes that results in instability of financial and income resources and makes planning a difficult task. Therefore, an appropriate financing plan to reduce the reliance on these incomes and replacing them with continuous stable ones would be of crucial importance for the urban economy and local finance. So, this paper is designed to study the status of municipal revenues in Ilam and to present an appropriate financing plan using six criteria of fairness, transparency, efficiency, sustainability, adequacy, and being operational. The research is conducted using analytical-documentary method. After investigating the flow of municipal revenues in Ilam, and filling the questionnaires by experts of Ilam municipality, weighting coefficients of objective functions were obtained and then the study plan was examined using programming method under two scenarios. Results of the study suggest that over 40% of Ilam municipality incomes rely on resources from construction, and criteria of fairness and transparency in taxation are in top priority. Moreover, results suggest the importance of reviewing the tax rates especially duties on cars by the municipality.

Needs have been introduced as important motivations of individual and collective behavior, so behaviors are reflections of the needs, and sustainability and continuity of human life depend on their satisfaction.Satisfaction can be defined as the level of actual performance of an organization to respond to the expectations of its clients. The lack of needs and satisfaction' assessment processes in urban planning and management system will lead to shortcomings such as: the absence of complete knowledge about citizens’ requests and needs, the lack of mutual relationship between decision-makers and the community, and the absence of applicable theoretical foundations in urban planning and governance. These problems were essential motivations to conduct a retrospective descriptive analysis and a prescriptive-analytical study, based on inductive research strategy in Joozdan, using methods such as social survey according to behavior measurements, Likert scaling, statistical tests and also document analysis. Our findings suggest that fixing the problems in the roads, heavy vehicles traffic, and bus services are in greater priority for citizens. On the other hand the greatest satisfaction is obtained from management of garbage collection, cleanliness of the neighborhood and urban infrastructures. The urge of the need and the level of satisfaction are inversely related and a simultaneous assessment of them in a community will help urban planners to be more confident in recognizing citizen’s priorities.

Urban tissues’ depreciation is a reflection of the deficiencies and shortcomings, such as the lack of urban services and infrastructures, the lack of access to appropriate networks and pathways, and environmental problems. Poverty of the residents, growing population, significant increases in land and housing prices, and speculations in the housing market has made financial issues regarding urban renewal projects to be one of the main concerns of the authorities. The experience of developed countries in using real estate funds for financing the worn out tissues renewal projects was applied to the Islamic securities (sukuk) issuance. In this paper, the profitability of an urban renewal project for Hemat-Abad neighborhood is analyzed. The results confirm the project’s profitability with a profit rate of 2.1 percent and 26.83 percent rate of return. In the next step, after an economic and technical review of different types of urban projects' financing plans including: Sukuk, participating bonds, hire-purchase agreements, Istisna, and Murabaha, they were ranked using multi criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach by considering the rate of return, the risk, bond issuance facilities, and public acceptance as criteria. According to the results, Sukuk was selected as the most appropriate bond type. The public acceptance for this kind of bond was analyzed and confirmed using statistical analysis on the data collected by distributing questionnaires among neighborhood residents and potential investors.