Tehran

Urban spaces refer to the man-made spaces which possess a special order for human behavior and activities. One of these spaces is the surrounding space of public transportation stations. The subway stations, although potentially encompass many different groups of people; few social interactions take place in these spaces. In this regard, by making the surrounding areas of the subway stations be pedestrian-oriented, the potential for increasing the socialization capacity of the mentioned spaces will be provided.The Sadeghieh Subway Station can be considered as the most important subway station in Tehran, which on the one hand is the rail port of Tehran’s western entrance, and on the other is the port for railway journeys inside the city. The main concern of this study is to assess the success or failure of the interventions made by the municipality for changing the surrounding area of the Sadeghieh Subway Station into a pedestrian-oriented space. The method used in this study is surveying, in which the data were collected using a questionnaire and interview. The study’s population is all people who use Sadeghieh Subway, and the sample size for the study were considered 140 subjects.The results shows that after the municipality’s actions to change the space into a pedestrian-oriented space the district have a progressive process in such cases as transportation, security, Pedestrian infrastructure, vitality and attractivity rate to remain in the space, the amount of traffic crossing the sidewalk, walking group, the lighting, the vendors, the cleaning, pavement structure and climatic elements. but in such cases as mix use, recreational activity, readability and design furniture no significant change was seen, and in some cases the results were counterproductive.

Mountains are of high importance in Iran due to the particular geography of this land. In addition to being ecologically significant, mountains offer multiple functions for Iranians that makes these natural elements to have different meanings for people to the point that most of the mountains adjoining residential areas have special names. In this regard, this research tries to study Alborz Mountains as the most important historically and ecologically mountains in Iran where Tehran, the most populated city and the capital of Iran, is located. Research in this area shows that the function of Alborz Mountains have changed for the people over time or have declined to a lower status. These mountains do not have their previous position in the minds of the people, and the authors believe that Iranians used to be consider Alborz Mountains as a cultural element with objective and subjective aspects. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the functions of Alborz Mountains and to study the relationship between mountains and people over time in order to find the meaning of the Alborz Mountains in terms of documentary and historical studies. The results of the research show that based on the conceptual scope of the landscape approach (which is a holistic and objective-minded approach to nature), the city and the mountains in general are not the main reasons for negligence of Alborz Mountains in the minds of people. In addition, the mountains for the people of Tehran, who are the main inhabitants of Alborz Mountains, are no longer a cultural landscape element with objective and subjective aspects. The objective aspects of mountains have been gradually disappeared or decreased considerably due to the loss of their objective functions and these elements have been eventually transformed into subjective elements.

Today, urban areas are among the most complex social landscapes. In order to detect and to resolve urban social problems, urban planners require a deep recognition of this complexity. Synthetic homogeneous neighborhoods offer one approach in moving towards reimagining some of the invisible socioeconomic aspects of urban life. In this paper, we use Openshaw’s Automated Zone Design (AZD) methods that utilize an array of factors and algorithms to generate new homogenous socio-spatial units based on both statistical and heuristic procedures. The results are polygons (pseudo neighborhoods) which represent a specific underlying socioeconomic patterning across the city. Using Tehran as our case, the hidden socioeconomic patterns are different from the administrative city divisions and cartographic. The consistency of the new zone design was checked through global and local Moran’s I; upon given assumption that for the resulted homogenous polygons (neighborhood), there is no spatial autocorrelation in the new zone design map. The results showed the random distribution for all but one socioeconomic indices in the new zone design map. The result converts heterogeneous urban divisions into new homogenous polygons (neighborhoods) by regrouping basic socioeconomic and spatial units.

Purpose - The present study aims to examine the challenges and opportunities for local stakeholders' empowerment related to rural planning in Iran. In general, the current approach of planning process from making decision to implementation and monitoring is based on instrumental rationalism approach, irrespective of the villagers’ viewpoints. Urban – Rural divided planning has created some challenges for sustainable rural development and opportunities for improving environmental-ecological and socio-economic indicators, which have been ignored . Design/Methodology/Approach- Less attention has been paid to local stakeholders' empowerment in planning methods and procedures, which is regarded as an obstacle for the promotion of the indicators related to sustainable rural development. The present study was based on a descriptive – analytical method. Correlation test and multivariate regression were used to provide a meaningful framework. Library and field studies were used for data collection. Library method was used to understand the impact of policy implementation and planning approach on the socio-economic empowerment of local stakeholders for their socio-economic participation in sustainable rural development and the study of previous research experiences and other countries on appropriate planning. The statistical population of the study is 124 villages in south and southeast of Tehran. Random sample size for completing the questionnaire of local authorities at village level, using Cochran formula and its adjustment formula for small statistical population, with 95% confidence level and probability of 0.05 and prediction of variance S2 0.25 = sample size of 54 villages was achieved. In these 54 villages, 450 questionnaires were completed according to size by specifying sample size in each village .The validity of the research questionnaire was conducted by experts in organizations. The reliability of the questionnaire through Cronbach's alpha was 0.801. Findings- The results indicated that local stakeholder's generative empowerment is important although unproductive empowerment is increasingly overcoming. In addition, the possible effects of this process have been identified. Thus, problem-oriented planning is necessary for formulating a community-based approach optimally and strengthening social capital, which is not based on current instrumental rationalism approach. Thus, for the best planning with a community-based approach and the reinforcement of social capital, the group to convene is needed in the process and problem-oriented planning is important. This is inconsistent with the techno centrism rationalism approach.

In the modern cities, various issues show up. One of them is consumption which is deeply interlaced with modernity as the city’s prevalent culture in its sociological sense. Amongst the most important manifestations of consumption in the today’s cities is the consumption of the elements that are applied by the assistance of urban policies and parallel to the beautification of the public spaces and called aesthetical elements’ consumption in the current article. It is now for a while that Tehran has offered different urban aesthetical elements in the public spaces. Considering the necessity of recognizing the extent to which urban aesthetical elements are consumed as well as their interrelationships with the individuals’ citizenship identity, the present article evaluates the urban cultural policies through a survey research in three neighborhoods in Tehran, namely Niavaran, Jannat Abad and Yaft Abad. The study sample volume includes 390 individuals from the foresaid three neighborhoods to whom a questionnaire was administered as the data collection instrument. In the end, the results indicated that there is a significant relationship between the consumption of urban aesthetical elements’ consumption and citizens’ identities. The interpretation of the form of this relationship allows the researchers evaluate the effectiveness of the urban cultural policies. The results of this evaluation have been offered in the conclusion section of the current research paper.

Purpose: On the other hand, fatigue is one of the most important indicators of aging syndrome. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the level of physical activity and fatigue in elderly residents of rest homes in Tehran. Method: This was a descriptive correlational study in which 20 rest homes located in Tehran province constituted the study population. By visiting rest homes, the eligible subjects were chosen. Physical activity was measured by the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE). The FACIT Fatigue Scale is a short, 13-item, easy to administer tool that measures an individual’s level of fatigue during their usual daily activities over the past week. Nutritional status was evaluated by mini nutritional assessment (MNA). Results: The results of statistical analysis indicated a significant and positive correlation between PASE and FACIT scores (r=0.48, p<0.01) while, there was a significant negative correlation between FACIT score and age (r=-0.23, p<0.01). Also, there was a significant positive correlation between MNA and FACIT (r=0.40, p<0.01). In addition, a significant positive correlation was found between MNA and PASE score (r=0.31, p<0.01). Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that holding sports classes under the supervision of exercise physiologists is an essential matter to increase health and prevent age-related complications in elderly residents of Tehran rest homes.

In this paper, factors that effect on ICT adoption by SMEs in Tehran (Iran) are investigated. To do so, after reviewing the literature, we identified the factors affecting ICT adoption by SMEs in Tehran and, based on this review, we proposed our hypotheses. Factors include internal factors, external factors and ICT specifications that influence on IT adoption by SMEs. All hypotheses are confirmed except the one that articulates the relationship between perceived ease of use and ICT adoption by SMEs. Weak managerial support, lack of available skills, weak strategic vision regarding the ICT, weak innovative environment and insufficient financial resources are among the internal barriers. External barriers include weak governmental supports, legal environment, low cultural acceptance and weak pressures from customers, suppliers and competitors. Finally, low perceived usefulness and compatibility are among the ICT specifications that limit ICT adoption by SMEs.

This study on Indians in the Baharestan neighbourhood of Tehran investigates the nature of their social integration, and the factors which affect it. By considering integration as a two-way process, this research aims to contribute to the literature on integration, through the discovery of the status of foreign immigrants in a developing country with particular cultural, social, and religious regulations and norms. Based on semi-structured interviews with Iranian and Indian residents in the Baharestan neighbourhood, the study shows that these two groups live in Baharestan without tension. Using the theory of integration proposed by Bakker et al. (2014) as a “two-way” process, we argue in this study that the approaches taken by the two groups of Iranian and Indian residents have largely led to their social integration. The Indian minorities have preserved their own culture and adopted part of the host culture in order to respect the host community; likewise, the host community has accepted immigrant groups with an understanding of cultural differences, and this mutual respect has led to neighbourhood harmony. However, despite the willingness of both groups to expand their social interaction, this is difficult due to restrictions imposed on minorities, and insufficient public space.

Every company should think about producing new goods, the pAdvances in communication technology have led to changes in business practices. Shared businesses are a new way of presenting products through a platform in the virtual environment. In this business, people's assets are shared on a peer-to-peer basis. In addition to generating revenue, this business has created employment, increased productivity, reduce energy consumption and environmental pollution in the world. This study tries to investigate the barriers to the development of shared businesses in Tehran. The research method in this study is qualitative and the data collection tool is a semi-structured interview. The informed statistical population includes 30 university lecturers, elites, graduates, entrepreneurs and manufacturers. The subjects of the recorded interviews were extracted by the lecturers of the Business Management Department and analyzed using the network themes method in MAXQDA software. Findings show that 64 barriers have been identified as the basic themes and after reviewing the opinions of experts, these barriers have been classified into 6 main themes. These barriers are: trust barriers, technology barriers, knowledge and information barriers, economic barriers, political barriers and managerial barriers.

Nowadays, paying attention to the facade and facade design has considerable importance. The facade of the buildings and cons tructions is an essential part of the urban landscape, and thereupon it plays a significant role in urban quality. One of the crucial factors in forming urban landscapes is employing aes thetic measures as touchs tones in the design process. This s tudy aims to reach a set of aes thetic measures from the viewpoint of people in the same society according to the perceptual differences of citizens in the northern and southern regions of Tehran. There are several measures that, by relying on them, we can arrive at an ideal facade design from the viewpoint of people and the building users; designers can also help designers cooperate with the idea and viewpoints of people, their approval in their designs. The following research is done in an applied-analytic method, and gathering the data was done by library and field research and by designing ques tionnaires for the users. By scrutinizing and analyzing the data, it is concluded that the objective criteria are in priority for specifying the beauty in the residential facade.

Earthquake has always endangered cities. This article mainly focuses on the question “whether seismic damages could be diminished through the presentation a preventive operational pattern dealing with physical and nonphysical features of civil defense”. Tehran, the most populous metropolis among Iranian cities is to the south of Alborz mountain range, located on potentially dangerous fault- lines. By Civil Defense Emergency Management (CDEM) preventive guidelines in a part of district 10 of Tehran, within the Ray fault’s danger zone, it is recommended that the earthquake vulnerability zoning plot of the area be compiled and accordingly, operational solutions encompassing organizing open spaces, redistributing and re-allocating land uses, enhancing relocating disaster management centers to more commanding locations are offered to be implemented within the physical structure of the area. The IHWP method and the Raster Calculator tool in GIS have been used for compiling the zoning of earthquake vulnerability.

One of the results of urban renovation is population displacement. If these renovations lead to live prosperous social classes, it is called gentrification. In this regard one of the urban renovation strategies is gentrification that is equal in "the acceptability of texture in public opinion" and is known as a synonym of "improving the quality of living environment for residents and citizens". In Iran despite interventions that take place in inner-cities these interventions are not the examples of gentrification; accordingly, it must be understood that what factors influence these interventions and whether renovation of Iranian inner-cities can be occurred in the framework of gentrification? This article tries to review the Navvab Project, by using a descriptive – analytical approach and documentary – library survey. Therefore, while reviewing mentioned project, gentrification obstacles of this project and its generalizations to Iranian inner-cities, hypotheses in three levels, Macroscopic, Mesoscopic and Microscopic scales, have been explained and strategies for preparation of this process provided.

Park design in Iran has followed the traditional European style since the Qajar dynasty. The familiarity of Iranians with the spirit of Persian gardens and the low quality of the newest parks is such that users prefer ancient geometrical Persian gardens. Today, those responsible for the design of urban green spaces lacking examples differing from the traditional and thus they are in need of an adequate set of guidelines for how to design for present conditions, users, and their needs. This research focuses on the relationship between park design components and users’ psychological restoration regarding their preferences and perceptions to increase the quality of parks, diminish vandalism, and increase user agency. Psychological restoration is the likeliness that people will be able to rest and recover their ability to focus. A random sample of 100 Tehranian residents was taken by presenting them with images depicting 6 urban parks from around their city. The results were analyzed by grouping into categories: 1-similar activities and 2-by counting and categorizing the individual descriptions of components (frequency of words) contributing to restoration likelihood. Findings showed that the categories mentioned most frequently for high levels of restoration were natural categories including trees, shrubs, grasses, flowers, and water. Findings with low levels of restoration and recovery consisted of negative contextual conditions and the absence of nature such as high rise buildings around the parks, lack of trees, and crowds of people. The activities imagined more frequently were playing and other physical activities, social activities, and relaxation.

  Today, sustainable development of tourism as a strategy for the development of cities, especially remote cities is a relatively new idea that its importance has been realized by policymakers. This type of tourism can be considered as a source of income, creating jobs, and making positive changes in the income of cities. In tourism studies, there are also discussions about spiritual tourism. However, most scholars do not consider spiritual tourism as realtourism because it is like an umbrella that can include various types of tourism that leads to a transcendental sense and sacred values such as ‘Spiritual city tourism’.Then, using laboratory techniques of test and evaluation of fuzzy DEMATEL decision making, as one of the appropriate decision-making techniques that deal with systematic relations between variables, relations among factors influencing the development of Spiritual city tourism in Tehran are studied and modeled. The results of the fuzzy DEMATEL method showed that factors affecting the development of Spiritualcity tourism include Appropriate planning and management, Direct supervision of the government and institutions on those active in the field of tourism, Presence of experts fluent in live languages of the world beside tourism attractions, Attracting foreign investment for the development of Spiritual city tourism activities with contracts and special facilities, Marketing, advertising, and introducing tourism attractions in national and international areas, Culturalization of tourism development and promotion of tourist acceptance culture among city residents.

INTRODUCTION: The structure of the urban platform of Tehran and its physical characteristics depends on the inherent conditions and environmental thresholds in relation to changes. This study aimed to determine the natural landscapes of Tehran by two phenomena of earthquake and flood that posed the highest risk in different periods of this city. Therefore, the natural perspective of Tehran is divided into three perspectives of north, central, and south regarding the inherent features and evolutionary process. METHODS: The relationship between the perspective of Tehran based on the form and geomorphological processes and the evaluation of earthquake and flood hazards have been observed in four stages, which included data collection, data processing, calculation of indicators, and analysis of findings. The studied area was divided into three northern, central, and south urban landscapes to determine the resistance thresholds of the city according to the characteristics of topography, physiography, geology, the results of field studies and satellite images, aerial photographs, as well as paleogeomorphological research in Tehran. FINDINGS: According to the zoning map of Tehran based on the earthquake phenomenon in three perspectives of north, center, and south, the highest distribution of non-resistance is observed in the northern and southern areas of the city. Northeast, southwest, and semi-western regions have the highest urban resilience to earthquakes. Moreover, regarding the zoning of Tehran based on the flood phenomenon in the three perspectives of north, center, and south, the highest distribution of non-resilience has been observed in the northern regions of the city. Northeast, southwest, and west of Tehran have the highest urban flood resilience. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of the present study, in order to increase resilience against the risks of earthquakes and floods, the city of Tehran should be studied not in just one perspective but in different perspectives.

In world economic process, tourism plays a critical role and is deemed as a main element of development. One of mostly-used types of tourism is the urban tourism as the beginning of development of this industry, and attracts many tourists per year. This paper studies the urban tourism importance, then the role of urban tourism planning in metropolitan Tehran. The main purpose of this research is the analysis and recognition of position of tourism industry in economic growth and income resources of Tehran. The current research is practical in goal, and descriptive- inferential in the research performance methodology, and the data was collected using the documentary and questionnaire method. Statistical population of this research includes Tehran inhabitants among whom the researcher- organized questionnaire was distributed and collected. Using Cochran Formula, 384 people was chosen as sample of statistical population, and data was analyzed and the statistical tests were used by applying SPSS software. The results indicated that planning for attraction of more tourists and increase of their duration can be effective on economic development of Tehran. In this research, tourism industry includes two important factors, infrastructures and advertisement, which shall be considered as main priority and seriously pursued in Tehran tourism planning

Urbanization and urban development have been considered as one of the main phenomena of contemporary age. As the last century was called as industrial revolution, the current century can be called as urban revolution. Urbanization growth in its modern meaning has been originated from industrial countries and changed to a worldwide phenomenon in the second half of twenties century and was intensified more and more. One of the most important challenges which urban planners were faced by was the way of providing urban permanent financial resources. This challenge is more and more increased when the need for public services in cities and financial limitation in municipalities from other side are increasing. In this regard, one of the items seeming to be influential in stabilization of urban income in Tehran is the increase of health tourism capacities. This study has been practical in term of objective and descriptive analysis in term of method. In order to complete the information and better investigate the topic of the research a questionnaire was designed based on hypothesis and distributed among 155 health tourism experts and authorites in Tehran. The results showed that health tourism qualification is influential on stabilization and cooperation of urban incomes in Tehran.

INTRODUCTION: The present study aimed to compare the cultural components among the youth in Tehran, Iran with an emphasis on political culture. METHODS: In this quantitative research, a total of 382 youths aged 18 to 35 were selected using Cochran's sample size formula. Simple cluster and random sampling methods were used in this study. The data of the participants were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. The reliability of the test was calculated with Cronbach's alpha (0.78). FINDINGS: The components of political culture, political value, political knowledge, and political attitude were expressed by the respondents as the most important items with a mean of 3.26, 3.35, 3.21, and 3.24, respectively. CONCLUSION: The results of the research revealed a significant difference between the level of the political culture of youths in each urban area. In addition, a significant difference was observed in the components of political culture (value, knowledge, and political attitude) according to the urban area (north, south, east, west, and center) of Tehran

INTRODUCTION: The network of relief centers, which is a connected set of relief centers, rescue points, and rescue routes, is of utmost importance during an earthquake. This study aimed to model this network to identify the aid-receiving points and rescue routes, followed by the development of plans to improve the aid-giving process during an earthquake. METHODS: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted based on an applied research method and a quantitative approach. The required data were obtained through the library method (documents). The data used in this study included location information of relief centers (hospitals, crisis management centers, Red Crescent centers) and the transportation routes among them. These pieces of information were collected from related plans and documents. The obtained data related to the location of relief centers were analyzed using Spatial Analysis, and Network Analysis tools were utilized to analyze the transportation routes among the relief centers. FINDINGS: The findings in this study revealed the right places for receiving aid and the rescue routes that deliver aid from the aid-giving to the aid-receiving centers in the central zone of Tehran in the shortest time. Moreover, the relief centers were ranked based on their importance during a crisis. CONCLUSION: The results of this study show the number of required aid-receiving points in the central zone of Tehran through which the aid needed during a crisis can be delivered from rescue centers. The findings revealed which relief centers played a more significant role during an earthquake. The identification of these points and routes makes the provision of special planning possible during an earthquake.