Evaluation and Ranking of Influencing Factors in Citizen Participation in Urban Management )Case Study: Region 2 of Municipality of Tabriz(

1. Introduction Today, one of the basic planning in new world is paying attention to the conscious and active participation of people in all aspects of development (Mousavi, 2005, 68). In recent years, in Iran, local communities and participatory planning in urban management has been greatly considered in urban management and citizen participation in municipal affairs become one of the main concerns for urban managers and always has been emphasized on in the scientific, political and administrative fields (Abbaszadeh, 2008, 44). It is also worth noting that the formation of councils and district councils in the country has been existed in order to renew construction of urban management and formation of participatory management structure (Tavakkoliniya and Ostadi sisi, 2009, 30).   2. Theoretical Foundations Participation is the people's intellectual and emotional involvement in groups that motivate them to help each other for achieving the group goals and sharing in the responsibilities. In investigations and theories for the participation, two main approaches can be identified: Micro and macro approaches. At the micro level it is emphasized on motivation, attitudes and participation behavior, and at the macro level issues and conditions and structural elements are considered. Participatory action can be divided into two parts of mental and behavioral. The mental part includes the personal interest and the behavioral part considers volunteer group activities. Max Weber focused on beliefs, attitudes and influences on participation. Humenz recognized the behaviors as a result of calculating profit or loss. Participatory behavior will be institutional when the benefits exceed its costs (Mousayi and Razavi, 2010, 124).   3. Discussion -Assessment of influencing factors on citizen participation in urban management process. In this section, at first using theoretical principles the parameters of influencing citizen participation factors have been extracted, then the respondents have been asked about assessing the indicatorsextracted from the five factors (included personal, spiritual, social, economic and management). Leisure time, with a rating of 13.4 is the most effective; It means citizens who have more leisure timecan be contributed more in the process of urban management. Among the indicators that are related to psychological factors, mental stresses are the most influential indicator (with a score of 3.91). Interviews that performed in this field indicate that this index is considered as a deterrent. The other factor that has been surveyed in this part is the social factor. Among the social indicators, place belonging (with a score of 4.3) is the most influential factor. Studies on the economic factors affecting citizen participation in urban management show that the most effective index is economically profitable (with a score of 4.34). The last case evaluated in this section is related to management that was evaluated by eight indicators, in this context, the effect of all the indicators is confirmed. But the most impact is related to institutional trust (trust between citizens and officials) that is rated at 4.31.   -Ranking the effective factors on citizen participation in urban management. In this section using Topsis model as one of the Multi Criteria Decision Making, the ranking of influencing factors on citizen participation in urban management process has been done. The first step is providing the decision matrix or classified matrices. In this section, this matrix has been made based on indices scores that are related to each factor. The second step in this section is the scaling off the classified matrix that has been implemented with using soft scaling off. Based on this method each component of decision matrix was divided into square sum of the related components column. Third step is weighting for the 5 factors completed based on the 20 specialized experts in municipal affairs. For it, pairwise comparison has been used using expert choice software. The inconsistency rate is 0.03, which is within the acceptable incompatibility range. Next step is determining the scale off matrix derived from the classification matrix multiplication by factors weights. Then, ideal positive and negative responses for each of these factors can be found in Topsis model. Finally, ranking is done according to rate. The above rate is fluctuated as. Where  represents the highest and  showes the lowest rank. According to rate, ranking of the five factors are as follows: social factors is the most effective factor in citizen participation in urban management. Economic, psychological, and management and individual factors are effective in order.   4. Results According to studies, this research has classified the influencing citizen participation factors in urban management into five general groups; individual, psychological, social, economic, and management factors. This also can be argued that the most influential individual indicators are leisure time, having physically health and education in an order. Among the psychological factors, the most influential psychological indicators are stress and public relations and expectency for the future. Among the social factors, the most influential are belonging to the place, the feeling of deprivation and being NGO member. The most influential economic indicators are profitable collaborative activities in order to be economicallystable income and property values. Finally, the most influential factors in the management indicators are, in an order, institutional trust (trust between citizens and officials), community-based approach to city management and the satisfaction of citizen from urban services. The overall ranking for influential factors in citizen participation in urban management process is the social factors in the first rank, economic factors are in second rank, and then psychological factors, and management factors and individual factors are in third, fourth and fifth rank, respectively.   5. Suggestions According to the research studies and findings, in order to increase citizen participation in urban management, the following suggestions can be offered: - efficient use of leisure time by the city managers. - strengthening the factors of place belonging in neighborhoods. - optimal preparation of the facilities and required applications in areas that can reduce the sense of deprivation. - reduction in stresses related to urban management. - strengthening a culture of hope and positive look for the future. - strengthening quality and quantity of NGOs with extension of public spaces and elements of urban society. - justifying the economic, social and environmental programs and urban plans. -strengthening the public trust for city managers.