Neighborhood

The experience of Iranian-Islamic cities represents the role of mosques on physical and social organization in urban neighborhoods. It appears that this role has been changed during the contemporary era. The purpose of this paper is to exامینe the impact of social and cultural contexts on the performance of local mosques. The main question of this research is: “What is the relationship between social context and the performance of local mosques?” The research hypo thesis is that the reseems to be a significant relationship between the social factors and the performance of local mosques in urban neighborhoods. Methodology of the research has been based on analyticaldescriptive method. In order to exامینe this hypothesis, the or etical and practical definitions of the survey’s variables, “social component of mosques and their performance in urban neighborhoods", are provided applying the theory of social capital. Afterward, the indexes of each variable are determined and applied in questionnaire to be evaluated in case studies. The data of the study were analyzed through SPSS software and the hypothesis was confirmed with 95% confidence level.

The neighborhood has had a long history in Iranian urbanization. Since urban plans were introduced by the authorities to shape urban development in Iran half a century ago, the concept of Iranian traditional neighborhood has been neglected gradually. The concept of neighborhood has not found the appropriate status in urban design and planning yet. One of the main reasons is that academics, professional urban planners, designers and managers use different definition and no consensus exists on definition of neighborhood. The aim of research is to compare residents’ perception of their neighborhood boundaries with boundaries of administrative-defined Neighborhoods which municipalities consider. The main hypothesis of the research is fundamental difference between these two views: top- down view from experts and urban managers who see the neighborhood as a spatial unit for city organizing and bottom- up view from residents who consider the neighborhood as the place of their social life. The Research methodology has been done base on the survey method and an analytical approach has been applied. The case study is located in Mashhad city in Iran. Four municipality-defined neighborhoods were selected in various urban fabrics of the city. Findings indicate that residents’ definition of their neighborhood was influenced by socio-spatial factors and interaction of these on each other. There is a substantial and fundamental difference between residents’ definition of neighborhood and municipality-defined neighborhood. Finally, this study proposes recommendations for the better definition of administrative neighborhoods in Iran.

Attachment to a place is a positive emotional relation between a person and a place that leads to the significance of a place for the people staying there. Several studies have been presented about the sense of attachment to one or more locations around the world that each of them has evaluated the subject from a specific view and has achieved different results. This research tries to assess the relationship between intensity of attachment to a place and scale of the place with a new look at this issue. Accordingly, the factors influencing the attachment on the place have been exامینed in three dimensions of "physical", "socio-demographic" and "emotional". Physical factors have been divided into three scales of house, neighborhood and urban. Social-demographic factors have been generalized to variables such as age, gender, level of education, etc. Emotional factors have been extracted from 21 indices of the literature related to the concepts of place and attachment to a place. In this research, 12 emotional cases were evaluated for each of three interest place scales for people with different demographic characteristics in Shiraz. Studies were conducted through questionnaires at different neighborhoods with randomly selected citizens and the results were presented as a descriptive and analytical report. These results indicate that the feeling of attachment to the city scale is at the highest level, and then is a home, and finally is the attachment to the neighborhood scale.

INTRODUCTION: The rapid population growth and fast-paced development of urban texture have given rise to unwise decisions which can be only prevented by strategic management of city neighborhoods based on a vision in accordance with the common values of society. The vision development aims at determining the position a neighborhood strives to reach. In the meantime, disaster-stricken areas have a special position, considering reconstruction as a golden opportunity. The present article aimed to develop a vision for Shiroodi and Fooladi neighborhoods in Sarpol-e Zahab after the 1396 earthquake in Kermanshah province. METHODS: The present applied research was conducted based on a descriptive-analytical design. To this end, situation assessment was firstly performed in both strategic and local domains based on urban systems. For each system, the table of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) was prepared. Moreover, combining different layers, a vulnerability map and an integrated SWOT analysis map were obtained. Finally, based on these maps, field observations, interviews with residents, and expert opinions, a vision statement was presented and the necessary policies were formulated. FINDINGS: Based on the obtained results, the strengths, and opportunities, such as quick access to the main artery and the presence of barren lands, have a resilient state in response to disasters. On the other hand, weaknesses, and threats, such as construction on agricultural lands or the narrow passages, are among the factors that highlight the need to select a vision with a resilient approach to future disasters. CONCLUSION: As evidenced by the research of the study, the first stage of visioning must be based on urban systems, such as land use, movement and access, physical form, and landscape urbanism. In this regard, a vision needs to assess resilience at different physical, environmental, social, and economic levels. Furthermore, this vision should lead to the presentation of some instructions, such as the obtainment of a checkered texture, expansion of green spaces, reduction of enclosures, as well as safety in infrastructure and networks, to increase the resilience of the target neighborhood after the earthquake.

Participation of people in their cities and neighborhoods has always been emphasized by researchers and experts in order to improve the quality of citizens’ life and having efficient urban management. However, it seems that providing participation contexts at local level by citizens needs preparations and substrates that facilitate participation. In the meantime, establishing a neighborhood management plan in order to provide participation contexts at local level by citizens can be considered as a movement in this regard. Accordingly, the purpose of the present research is to evaluate the relationship between neighborhood involvement sense and social participation of citizens. In this regard, Kuti neighborhood of Bushehr, which has valuable activity, physical, and social features, is investigated as a sample. In the present research, the research method is operational based on the purpose and descriptive-analytical and experimental-surveying based on the method. Thus, library studies have been used to explain literature and history of the research subject, and field methods have been used to collect data according to the nature of the research. The data were collected by a questionnaire among 60 residents of the Kuti neighborhood who were over 18 years old. The sampling method, used in this study, was random and SPSS software was used for data analysis. The results of this research indicate that there is a relationship between neighborhood involvement sense and preparation for participation. The correlation between these two variables was in the positive direction. In addition, by increasing the neighborhood involvement sense, the preparation for participation increases.