The role of neighborhood-based planning for neighborhood sustainable development (Case study: Hosseinieh neighborhood in Zanjan City)

Introduction Zanjan is one of the historic cities of Iran with rapid urbanization. Now its old and historic neighborhoods have been turned into the deteriorated textures. The problems of those neighborhoods have not been solved through projects and programs in urban scale. Hence, this is required to consider the issues in the neighborhood scale to solve them. One of the old neighborhoods of Zanjan city is Hosseinieh neighborhood faced with many physical and socio-economical problems. So far, the city plans have failed to help properly this area revitalization.Hence, the problems need to be solved by the neighborhood and community planning. Researchers such as Watts (2006), Dixon (2011), Colton (2012), Hajipour (2006), The Salek (2007), Rafieapour (2009), Masoumi (2011), Madani (2012) and Rakhtabnak (2014) have used the concept of neighborhood planning and community development in recent years. In this study, we have tried to answer these questions: 1. what is the relationship between community planning and community sustainable development? 2. What is the relationship between the local community participation and sustainable neighborhoods? 3. What is the impact of local planning initiatives and the participation of the local community on sustainable development in the Hosseinieh neighborhood.   Methodology The type of study is descriptive - analytical and conducted by the questionnaire survey among neighborhood residents. The universal population of the study is 357 people calculated based on the Cochran’s Sample size method. The reliability of the instrument has calculated the Cranach alpha and value of 88.3 is obtained. In order to analyze the data, we used the several methods such as Pearson's correlation and regression analysis in SPSS software for description and analysis of the statistics.   Discussion The findings of this study are consistent with the findings of Rahmati, Reza Zadeh and Sleseleh (2008), with the necessity of neighborhood planning. The research findings are consistent with the results of the studies of Madani (2012), Abdullahi and Rkhtabnak (2014) in relation to sustainable development, public service and community initiatives subject. The findings of this study comply with the results of Masoud and Moazzezi (2012). The results of the study are also consistent with the findings of Doiran (2008), Rafieian, and Forozandeh (2011) about the willingness of people to participate. The results of this study with the results of Rafieapour and Gavgani (2009), Forozandeh (2010) and Mousavi, Reza Al-Hashem (2010) in relation to the participation cost, attitude and attitude toward the willingness to pay a city toll authorities and citizen participation.   Conclusion The results of this research show that there is a positive correlation between the sustainable development and the index of neighborhood planning. In addition, there is high positive correlation between neighborhood sustainable development and resident’s participation. Community planning is the first factor affects sustainable development of study neighborhood and the participation of the local community is the second factor affecting in the issue. Therefore, we have proposed improvement of resident satisfaction, neighborhood environment, residents' awareness of the development projects, the establishment of the Social Development Fund, establishment of neighborhood councils and mayor of the neighborhood, empowerment of management system in neighborhood council, promotion of vertical relationships between local management and staff levels, motivating residents to facilitate the empowerment of local communities and to give more power to local groups, facilitation of the formation and activities of local community groups and networks, strengthening institutions, non-governmental organizations, organizing informal institutions and finally education of youth for participation in community affairs.