Factors Affecting Desirable Urban Management in Tehran Metropolis based on Causal Mapping Approach

جغرافیا و توسعه فضای شهری

Volume 11, Issue 4, March 2025, Pages 153-168   

Document Type: Scientific-Research

DOI: 10.22067/jgusd.2024.80015.1275

Authors

Saeid Khatam¹; Zahra Ahmadipour^{* 2}; Mahnaz Khatam³

¹postdoctoral in Political Geography, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

²Professor of Political Geography, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

³PhD, Department of Management, Sirjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sirjan, Iran.

Abstract

Extended Abstract

Introduction

The officials of metropolises currently need to reconsider the management systems and the laws governing them, given that the growth of the cities seems to be out of control and have been causing environmental degradation and creating numerous socio-cultural, and economic problems. Tehran metropolis, as a unified system, should follow a unified and integrated management. Here the use of unified and integrated urban management is meaningful, because unified management will result in savings in urban costs. The speed and size of urban population growth and even the increase in the number of cities in developing countries have made many cities of the glove, especially metropolises, entangled in numerous problems and challenges. Mainly these challenges arise from the imbalance between the extensive and ever-increasing urban needs and the ability of urban management in meeting the needs or solving the challenges. Here, urban management as the headquarter of city administration can play significant role. Faced with the sensitive social, economic and political changes on the values of democracy in the modern and postmodern era, Tehran metropolis as a pioneer in urbanization in Iran feels and warns the ruling system of the need for changes. These changes primarily are on the desirable situation of the management of the Tehran metropolis regarding socio-political and managerial structure of Iran. This study aimed to formulate an causal model of desirable urban management in Tehran metropolis, using a cognitive mapping approach. It tried to see: what elements have the model of factors of desirable urban management in Tehran metropolis based on the causal mapping approach?

Method

For the data analysis, the data were taken by Cognizer 1.2. Then, the data were analyzed in SPSS through the tau, Kendall, and Kruskal-Wallis correlation tests, respectively. The similarity of experts' cognitive maps was considered to investigate the linear correlation between cognitive maps as a warrant to merge the maps. The second-order allocation procedure correlation with the scaling method was used to strengthen the examination of the similarity of experts' cognitive maps. Multidimensional scaling was used for the multidimensional cluster analysis of similarity or difference patterns of experts' cognitive maps. Cluster analysis was also applied to categorize experts’ cognitive maps based on their characteristics. UciNet6 and Cognizer 1.2 were used to do the calculations. For merging the agreed-upon cognitive map of experts that show relatively strong relationships between the factors. Map average calculations in Excell and UciNet 0 software were used for identifying the issues and measuring the strength of these relationships. Then, the related fuzzification was done at the cut point of 0.65. The correlation coefficient of the factors of the merged maps was calculated and multidimensional scaling analysis was performed. Finally, after removing the intermediate factors that had not any input and output, we did block modeling in the adjacency matrix data of the maps using UciNet method.

Results

This case study focused on Tehran metropolis. Thirty-one managers, deputies and experts of urban management in the Tehran metropolis participated in this study. Typical sampling (choosing those had most knowledge and experience on the phenomenon under study) was applied. For this purpose, the members of the urban management organization were asked toward identifying the most knowledgeable experts on the situation and dynamics of the organization. Then, those who knew the subject under study were invited to participate. A semi-closed questionnaire based on the Likert scale (entailing 12 procedural factors of urban management in the Tehran metropolis, extracted from the related literature), was designed and distributed among the experts to be determined in terms of significance and to identify other factors effective in this city, though at the end nothing was added to these factors. For scrutinizing and determining notable factors, fuzzy logic was used. Reviewing the related literature yielded in the identification of 12 effective factors of urban management in the Tehran metropolis. The results of non-parametric correlation tests showed that since the significance of the tests is higher than 0.05 (with a probability of 95%), there is no significant relationship between the expertise indices of these experts and the complexity indices of the cognitive maps.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study showed that the participation people is the driving factor of urban management and plays a significant role in solving many urban problems and challenges. This ideas relied on the key principle that governments, instead of solely taking full responsibility of managing their communities, besides citizens and the private sector should be accepted as one of the institutions or agents that are responsible for managing their society. Accordingly, governments play the role of facilitator and make the ground for the development of society at the national, local, and urban levels. Governance as a process of identifying the scope of mutual relations that surround us and the best ways to link them together in the cities, is significant for achieving the sustainability in the cities. The results indicated that the factors of desirable urban management in the Tehran metropolis based on the causal mapping approach are: the accountability of managers, the participation of citizens, planning, decentralization, government efficiency, rule and dominance of law, fighting against corruption, integrated management, responsibility, efficiency, transparency, and justice-centeredness. The increase of citizens’ participation enhances integrated management increases and prevents the fragmentation of affairs. In contrast, if citizens do not act and participate in managing the cities, urban governance in its real sense is not crystalized and urban management remains in a limited and static condition. The inactivity will result in a partial dominant power on making decisions about the problems and challenges of city and citizens.
 
 

Keywords

Keywords: Desirable Urban Management; Causal Mapping; Tehran Metropolis

References

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