examines the social and cultural impacts of the neighborhood management plan on the lives of citizens in Tehran
Subject Areas :sara monirifar 1 , reza esmaili 2 , mansour haghighatian 3 , Hossein Imani Jajarmi 4
1 - Islamic Azad University dehaghan
2 - Member of faculty of cultural management and cultural planning department of Isfahan Islamic Azad University
3 - Associate professor Azad University dehaghan
4 - head of the Institute of Social Studies and Research of Tehran University. Since 2014, the main member of the board of directors of the Sociological Association of Iran
Keywords: " neighborhood management", "social participation", " neighborhood identity", " life satisfaction", "social belief",
Abstract :
Title: Assessing the social and cultural effects of neighborhood management on the lives of Tehran's citizens
In the recent years , following the emergence of the problems caused by weakening social ties in cities and exacerbating the alienation of residents towards each other, the issue of the neighborhood and local communities has attracted the attention of managers and authorities. The present study examines the social and cultural impacts of the neighborhood management plan on the lives of citizens in Tehran. Accordingly, hypotheses have been derived from the theories made by Pathnam , Jacobs and Parsons. The research is a survey and the unit of analysis is an individual. The research population consists of citizens over 15 years of age in Tehran. In this research, the samples were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling. The sample size is estimated to be 633 persons using Sample SPSS Power software, and a questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed on two levels (descriptive statistics and inferential statistics). The results showed that there was a significant relationship between the neighborhood management variable and the variables of social partnership of citizens, neighborhood identity and social trust. However, the greatest impact of the neighborhood management was on social participation of citizens(0.42) and after that it has influence on social trust(0.32) and community identity(0.22), respectively. Of the indirect consequences of neighborhood management can be referred to the sense of security and satisfaction
Introduction:
Paying attention to neighborhoods as the smallest units of the city's spatial organization and adopting a neighborhood management model in urban management leads to the transfer of decision-making and decision-taking process to lower levels of the city and more tangible dimensions of citizen life and the realization of management and planning goes from the bottom to up. The main purpose of neighborhood management is emphasizing on the local identity in line with sustainable local development, local affiliation and local participation. The process of implementing any social program, policy or project, may encounter unwanted events and paths, due to the social and cultural nature of the environment involved, which was not initially intended by designers and executors. The neighborhood management program is no exception to this, and due to some structural challenges in explaining the role of such an institution and the lack of trust in it by government institutions and bodies, as well as by residents and local institutions, the neighborhood management and councils’ functions have been presented inefficiently and disrupted. Therefore, in these circumstances, it was felt necessary to conduct this research to examine the social and cultural implications of the neighborhood management plan on the lives of citizens.
Methodology:
The present research is a survey research in terms of method and the unit of analysis in that is person and it is a cross-sectional research in terms of time criterion. The statistical population of this study is citizens over 18 years old in Tehran. The total number of them according to the 2016 census is equal to 5525000 people. Since it is not possible to study the views of all citizens, cluster sampling was used. In order to optimize the sample size, SPSS Sample Power Software was used. According to the objectives and hypotheses of the research and statistical methods used, the sample size was estimated to be 700 people, which was reduced to 630 due to the non-cooperation of a number of respondents.
Results:
Findings show that 57.3% of the statistical sample population are women and 42.7% are men. According to the obtained results, 44.05% of the respondents have very little or no participation, 29.85% have moderate and 25.47% have high and very high participation, which shows that the participation of citizens is low at the neighborhood level and the participation rate is on the first step of Arnstein ladder of participation. One of the most important results of exploratory statistics is that neighborhood management has a significant relationship with citizens' social participation, neighborhood identity and social trust, but neighborhood management has the greatest impact on citizens' social participation with an impact factor of 0.42. It has affected the social trust and neighborhood identity with impact factor of 0.32 and 0.22, respectively. And from the indirect results of neighborhood management, we can mention the sense of security and satisfaction.
Conclusion:
In general, it can be said that one of the factors for the development of any society is the participation and cooperation of the citizens of that society, so the government can attract the support of the people and build trust and confidence among the people in the planned programs. In order to realize and implement this, it should pay more attention to the performance of public institutions so that they can put their words into practice to gain people's trust and strengthen their sense of satisfaction and security. Since trust is the emotional basis for participation, trust creates a kind of collective spirit and prepares the ground for participation. Also, according to the obtained results, it can be said that neighborhood management has an effective role in creating a sense of neighborhood belonging and neighborhood identity among citizens. And neighborhood management, in addition to being able to directly affect the level of citizen participation, can affect the participation of citizens through local identity. Finally, people who participate more have a higher level of life satisfaction.
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