The Impact of Government Policies on Citizen Participation in the Reconstruction of the Deteriorated Fabrics in District 17 of Tehran Municipality

Abstract

Today, deteriorated urban fabrics face a number of issues and problems which ultimately discourages living in these areas. Today, governments are concerned about reconstruction of these areas with the help of citizen participation. In this regard, governments are seeking to increase the incentive to reconstruct the deteriorated fabrics through initiating some policies. Some of these policies will increase citizen participation while some will be ineffective. Therefore, the effectiveness of each policy in increasing citizens participation needs to be evaluated. The present study evaluates the impact of these policies on the participation of the residents of district 17 of Tehran, which is one of the most deteriorated fabrics. Structural equation modeling with Smart PIS software was used for the analysis of the derived data. The results indicate that policies such as facilitating the merging of neighboring lands, defining incentives and discounting policies, granting banking facilities, providing conditions for mass developer participation, purchasing deteriorated properties at fair and reasonable prices by municipalities, exchanging deteriorated properties with newly created state-owned real estate and establishing neighborhood participation centers have a significant impact on increasing citizen participation in reconstruction of deteriorated urban fabrics with coefficients of influence of 1.225, 0.694, 0.547, 0.430, 0.224, 0.209 and 0.115, respectively. Residents’ opinion polls on regeneration plans of deteriorated fabrics, on the other hand, do not have much effect in this regard. Therefore, it is recommended that governors and legislators strengthen the abovementioned effective policies and facilitate their provision; because resolving the problems of deteriorated fabrics in urban neighborhoods is impossible without the participation of residents.