Evaluation of Community Identity in Jahrom City

Introduction Identity comes from essential attributes of any object, person, or city that finds character through concepts such as differentiation and similarity, continuity and change, unity and diversity, and character. Identity crisis or a sense of no identification is seen as one of the crises of human life in the recent years in many territories and most communities. Therefore, the identity of neighborhood as an introduction to physical division of city and quality of its dimension and hierarchy has turned into a major necessity in discussion of urban planning. However, the identity of the neighborhood can strengthen the sense of belonging to a place and as result, citizen's identity; that is why the concept of neighborhood has a special place in urban planning and design. However, lack of attention to human identity in cities can bring great consequences. Some of the consequences, according to Anthony Giddens, are insecurity, fear, and anxiety existed in modern times. They stem from the fact that modernization destroys the traditional framework of protecting society and have replaced them with a larger and non-specific organization. The solution lies in revival of a less theorized and more human urban, where the environment is planned and designed for man and not dominant him. Identity and social participation in community is considered important as one of the structural– physical infrastructure. Urban survival shows the importance of neighborhood in social– mental development of urbanization. The neighborhood, therefore, is the physical embodiment of community and the boundaries are the embodiment of privacy and territories. With regard to the issues, this paper tries to measure the amount of neighborhood identity of the citizens of Jahrom. Then, the questions arise here as follows: How is the sense of belonging to a place of the residents of neighborhoods? In addition, what is its status? What is the link between local resident's participation and their sense of belonging to a place? Methodology This article is an applied – developmental research based on the objective; and the theoretical foundations are collected using library method; and the field observations using a questionnaire are used to collect the required information. After compiling questionnaire the questionnaires were completed using random sampling. The population in present study is consisted of the residents of all distressed areas in Jahrom, means 22375. The sample size was calculated using the Cochran formula up to 260 people. The questionnaire was analyzed via SPSS; finally, each criterion was calculated using statistical (Pearson and T) tests and standardized coefficients. Factor– heuristic analysis is used in order to analyze the factors affecting the identity of the neighborhood. It means that the result obtained in this study is reduction of 43 primary endpoints to 6 top factors through Varimax Rotation. Results and Discussion Using factor analysis in the study, it must first ensure whether the number of data required for analysis is appropriate or not? For this purpose, KMO index and Bartlett's test was used. According to the study, the index result obtained is 0.928; then, it indicates that the number of data is appropriate for factor analysis. Indicators loaded in the factors higher than 0.5form a factor and the indicators that do not have the possibility of accumulation form another factor. In addition, the total variance of six mentioned factors is 91.523 percent that the first factor is that most of it is 35.569 percent. Variance of 99.523 represent that the factor analysis was satisfactory. The results indicate that in this analysis, the first factor alone explains 35.569% of the variance. The second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth factors explain 34.518, 14.802, 6.633, 3.357 and 1.498 percent of the variance. The factors have been named as the quality of service, physical identity of the neighborhood, security, participation level and solidarity within the neighborhood, aesthetic stakes of neighborhood, and commitment in maintaining the fabric of the neighborhood, respectively. The sudden and growing gap between the expectations of citizens and their benefits from the services of the city, regardless of whether they are true or false, is causing dissatisfaction and satisfaction. In this research, the citizens have noted that the satisfaction of quality of service considered as the most important factor among the important factors for improvement of the city. Furthermore, we should know that the development approach of entering people into decision-making and control process requires attention to defaults of "public participation" including overcoming obstacles for people's participation in development. This prefers strategy of partnerships with other development strategies and the possibility of finding people to know their purposes. We can say that the cities have the desire for visual environments to broaden the aesthetic experience of citizens in order to improve the image of community of its own and strengthen the civic pride; and to improve the national and international prestige to strengthen the competitive ability of the city in order to attract more capital and creative classes. In today society, the human needs to coexistence are considered at a high level and the co-existence becomes more fulfilling in the form of citizen participation in community. There are factors among the various factors that cause satisfaction or dissatisfaction of organizational performance that are associated with feelings of citizens towards their home. These factors may have a positive effect on satisfaction. According to the results, the real average (2.82) is less than the given mean value (3). Therefore, the average sense of belonging to a place in the neighborhoods of Jahrom was assumed less than the theoretical average. It, then, can be said that the research hypothesis is confirmed. In addition, the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the participation and the level of belonging to a place. According to the correlation coefficient (0.925) with reliability of 0.99 and error smaller than 0.01, the results show that there is a significant statistical relationship between the two variables of level of participation and sense of belonging to a place. This means that the higher the level of participation in neighborhood, the greater the sense of belonging to a place and vice versa; the participation rate can also be reduced with the reduction of place. Conclusion Based on the results of factor analysis, the most important factor in factor analysis means the first factor with eigenvalues 23.120 and variance 35.569. This shows that the importance of factor "service quality in the neighborhood identity" is of utmost importance. The second important factor is the variable of "knowing the physical identity of neighborhood" that has little distance with the variable "quality of service". The variables of "security", "level of cooperation and solidarity within the neighborhood", "aesthetic risks of neighborhood" and "commitment in preserving the fabric of the neighborhood" are placed in the next levels. With respect to the Pearson correlation coefficient (0.925) with reliability of 0.99 and the error less than 0.01, the results show that there is statistically significant relationship between the two variables of the level of participation and sense of belonging to a place. This means that whatever the level of participation in the neighborhood increased the sense of belonging to a place will also be increased and vice versa. The participation rate reduces with the reduction in the level of sense of belongings to a place. However, despite the significant activities carried out, there is a gap between people and urban management. It is likely that the lack of citizens' participation in solving urban problems is resulted from the loss of residents' sense of belonging to them.