Journal of Urban Economics and Management

In recent years, the supply and demand system in tourism has experienced a significant change. Such a change is manifested in a new level of economy referred to as “experience economy”,   by Pine and Gilmore (1999), according to which such economy is the final phase of economic growth which is a more evolved phase of raw materials (in agricultural economy), of goods (in industrial economy), and services (in service-based economy). In experience economy, the consumer is client which is known as guest. The final product is a mix of goods, services, and experiences which give way to added value to the guest. Pine and Gilmore in their 4E Model, upon two aspects of the extent of participation (active/passive) and the degree of the guest interaction with the environment (absorption/immersion), made a distinction between four dimensions namely entertainment, education, a esthetics, and escapism. Inasmuch as the important issue of teen tourism has not been well accounted for in Iranian references and academic research, the current research has aimed at investigating into a case upon the 4E model in the perceptual context of the teenagers. The data were collected via library research, to shape the theoretical framework, and by means of observation and interview with 25 experts in teen tourism, as well as through a questionnaire developed based on Bogardus scale. The population included 560 male and female students of high schools in the city of Tehran. Utilizing SPSS and Excel software, the collected data were classified and analyzed. The results show that the students prefer to be completely immersed in nature while they prefer the a esthetic dimension in historical texture.

Nowadays, due to the increasing rate of environmental complexities and the growing number of effective factors in making appropriate decisions, making decisions based on scientific principles has obtained a specific status among the top managers. Opting for the best consultancy firm, as one of the most important decisions the top managers would make for receiving consultancy services, has changed into a vital decision regarding the complications of the current business atmosphere and the effects of the quality of such services on the future sustenance of an economic enterprise. In this paper, in order to make a proper decision to opt for an appropriate consultant in devising strategic plans, a nine-step procedure is presented the most important advantages of which are the pre-qualification of the alternatives and the classification of decision-making criteria into general and specific groups. The proposed procedure has been investigated and analyzed utilizing the real data collected from Tehran Beautification Organization (TBO). The results show that the proposed procedure for selecting consultants for strategic plans in urban management is of high applicability and replicability.

The scaling down of the government and privatization law enforcement have resulted in the assigning of activities, used to be on the government’s shoulder, to private companies and organizations. With an increase in the number of service providers in urban services section, the related companies and organizations have been involved in a competition to increase quality and derive customers’ satisfaction and take the most from the market. The current research study aims at introducing a self-assessment model playing an effective role in increasing such organizations’ customer-satisfaction. From among the auditors of the organizations for urban services in the city of Tehran, as the population of the study, 70 were randomly selected. To collect data, an already-developed questionnaire was utilized which enjoys statistically significant validity and reliability indexes. To test the hypotheses, the average test was used and the results showed that the current model for self-assessment does not have a significant effect for deriving customer satisfaction, while the model suggested in the current study is an effective one in increasing customers’ satisfaction.

Rapid development of urbanization has resulted in a number of problems in the cities of the lesser- and more-developed countries. Spatial inequalities are among the major problems the development of which has changed the spatial structure of the cities. The continuity of spatial inequalities and the decrease in life quality in some small-sized urban districts and the ineffectuality of the current methods necessitate opting for different but feasible methods in urban planning and management. The current study aims at emphasizing the life-quality decrease in the districts with spatial inequalities requiring analysis, interpretation, and putting forward a specific structure to help detect the reasons for the appearance of unequal structure wherein life quality has decreased, the threats and problems, and the opportunities which have avoiding traditional approaches to planning and management in small-sized urban districts in consequence. To this end, one of the small-sized districts of the city of Tehran, which suffers from spatial inequality and the decrease in life-quality, was selected and the preconditions for running planning and managing in it were pointed out. It goes without saying that devising a proper plan to moderate or eliminate the inequalities, together with the increase in public cooperation in urban management, and utilizing multidimensional concept about life quality in urban planning, distinct from the common methods, are among the major objectives of the study resulting in equality and the realization of justice in the cities.

In balanced-scorecard approach, the performance of an organization is not evaluated just against financial indices. The approach evaluates organization performance through four groups of factors namely finance, customers, internal processes, and leaning and growth measures. The method, in addition to the tangible assets of the organization, evaluates the organization intangible assets, which are of primary importance in today’s world, enabling the organization to compensate for the deficiencies. In the current study, the measures for performance evaluation have been developed based on balanced-scorecard approach (BSC) in Karaj Municipality. The study is descriptive-survey in nature as the researchers were not to change variables. Also, the method of eliciting data was upon the participants’ ideas. The research population consisted of 150 of the managers and the experts of Karaj municipality. The developed questionnaire was administered to the population and the frequency analysis of the collected data was done. Through factor analysis, the factors contributing to the strategic objectives of the municipality were extracted. The results show that the four measures of finance, customers, internal processes, and leaning and growth were of equal importance in an effort to achieve a strategic plan for municipality management. Thus, it is suggested that urban management design and implement the system based on the approach investigated in this study.

Nowadays, tourism, as a new-fledgling industry, has a lot of economic, social, and cultural effects. In this regard, residential areas, as important centers for economy, culture, service, etc. are of great importance for tourism-related activities. In order to achieve the objectives for sustainable development in tourism, considering its social, cultural, economic, environmental, and natural dimensions, a multilateral systemic analysis seems indispensable. The city of Maraqeh, due to natural, historical, and cultural potentialities, enjoys a high capacity and, through proper planning and identifying advantages and detecting its tourism limitations, attaining a sustainable development is not far to reach. The current article aims at planning strategies for the development of tourism industry in Maraqeh to attain sustainable development. The research method was analytic-descriptive and the data were collected through library sources, document, and field studies. To analyze data based on theoretical principles and field research, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats have been determined and strategies have been offered. The results show that the city of Maraqeh enjoys high potentials in tourism both history- and culture-wise and through strategies to develop tourism which requires a comprehensive planning to redefine SWOT, the development of tourism industry in this city is to come.

Municipalities’ annual budget, especially in metropolises, has seasonal and annual fluctuations which result from their dependency on unsustainable revenue resources. The high amount of unsustainable revenue resources, mostly building-related ones, has resulted in the municipalities’ uncertainty about their revenue amount due to the very fluctuations. Such an uncertainty has made the municipalities of metropolises and the central governments to guard against it. From among the methods to deal with such uncertain resources are governmental aids and legal permits. In this article, besides investigating into such methods, the legal permit for paying tax on installment plan has been analyzed which is one of the methods for avoiding unsustainable revenue for municipalities. The current article, utilizing the data on the revenue amount of Isfahan municipality from 1995 till 2009 and the GARCH pattern, has estimated the effect of paying building taxes on installment plan on the sustainability of the revenue for the municipality of Isfahan. The results show that such a method has the sustainability of the whole revenue of the municipality in consequence and that is why it is suggested that the regulations be devised and announced in a way that there could be a sustainable revenue. 

Self-assessment has developed as one of the techniques for the continuous improvement of organizations processes in recent years. Appropriate design and accurate implementation of self-assessment system in an organization allows the management to make decisions based on realities rather than relying on conjectures. Hence, an effective self-assessment model for large organizations was dealt with in this research. The statistical population of this research included all managers, internal auditors and experts of Tehran municipality among which 70 people were randomly selected as the sample. To collect the required data, a questionnaire was used. To estimate the related validity and reliability indexes, content analysis and Cronbach Alpha were run, respectively. To test the research hypotheses, Spearman Correlation Coefficient was calculated. The results showed that the suggested model for self-assessment may have significant effects through proper training.

Tourism industry, nowadays, is considered to be a demand-oriented profession. One of the methods of recognizing the demand is investigating tourists’ motivations for choosing a particular destination upon which the amount and type of supply can be decided. On the other hand, in the geography of spatial behavior, people’s understanding and choice of their surrounding environment is attended to and studied, in other words, it is claimed that an individual’s behavior and perception is derived from his motivations which are divided into “pull-and-push” motivations. A person’s “pull” motivations are originated in the features of the spatial system of a tourist destination. In the current article, via investigating the choosing process of an activity-based destination as an attracting factor, attempts have been made to define, compare, and contrast the spatial model of choosing two outbound destinations, namely Schengen area and Malaysia and an inbound one, i.e. Kish Island, the tourists residing in Tehran. The research method is descriptive via surveys and by means of proper instruments, library deeds and documents, and questionnaires, the required data were collected. To this end, subsequent to choosing appropriate models of “pull and push” factors from among the current models of tourists’ motivation, three types of questionnaires, for each field, were distributed to 416 target tourists. Utilizing the SPSS, the collected data were analyzed by means of Chi Square Tests and LSD (Fisher Least Significant Difference). The results showed that tourists’ imaginations of the facilities and amenities in destinations and the comfort in utilizing them and also the types of activities, not just attractions, are effective in choosing the intended destination.

In recent years, the complexities of urbanization in Iran and raising such issues as urban sustainable development, human development, city economy reinforcement, emphasis on social justice, environment preservation, etc. all in all, have made urban management a more complex and sophisticated issue. As a result, with regard to the extent of variables, a need for a new approach to urban management, on the one hand, and the government strategies and making a reform in the administrative and managerial structure of country, on the other hand, has justified the necessity of focusing on municipalities and of assigning new responsibilities to them. However, nowadays, despite all the emphases and efforts, no integrated system has been established in urban management system of the nation. In the absence of an urban integrated management, disorganization, disharmony, waste of resources, both human and financial, and, eventually, the citizens’ ever-increasing dissatisfaction are inevitable. Thus, the plan for an urban integrated management and the analysis of the current urban management system of the nation are of great importance as they pave the way for removing obstacles and easing the shortcomings. In this regard, the research method has been reported to be descriptive-analytic and library-based. Moreover, the research aims at investigating and clarifying integrated urban management in the nation’s rules and regulations and in identifying problems and legal barriers. The research concludes with offering solutions for such problems and improving the status quo in the nation’s urban management via obtained results.

In order for providing the city and the citizens with their requirements, there is a need for a plan which is made based on drawing a clear perspective, a well-defined purpose, and logic. Moreover, as far as the concept of vision is concerned, foresight will enable the municipalities to better satisfy the current and future needs of the citizens  therefore, the  current article, while introduces the process of developing a medium-term executive plan for Qayen municipality, relying on the concept “vision”, adopting a practical approach to BSC model of planning, puts emphasis on the specific potentials of the model in the implementation process as a practical framework for the realization of the vision. The article, suggesting a strategic plan with a collection of a number of cause-and-effect relations, puts forth a visual framework for consolidation of strategic objectives of Qayen municipality within the four-sided BSC. In order to preserve the balance between the dimensions of the BSC and the fourfold function of the municipality - namely development, service, supervision, and administration - and to expand the realm of urban development knowledge, the dimensions of the BSC, i.e. a) budget and financial resources, b) the city and citizen, c) domestic processes, and d) organizational infrastructure as well as strategic factors regarding the three themes of the city, citizen, and urban management are defined. The article concludes by suggesting the method of the system for the development of the financial side of the BSC in the executive plan of Qayen municipality to create an efficient financial system particularly utilizing sustainable income as a practical model. 

Recognition and classification of perceived risks of traveling to the tourist destinations can be considered as a useful instrument for tourists-related management and planning. Hence, the current article aims at classifying the risks perceived by the foreign tourists of taking trips to Isfahan and, also, investigating the role of previous travel experiences in perception of such risks. The research population was from among the tourists who had visited Isfahan during April and March of 2012. Via random sampling, a group of 300 tourists were selected to participate in the study. To collect the required data, a questionnaire comprising 29 items was utilized to classify the perceived risks the foreign tourists had come up with when intending to travel to Isfahan. To analyze the collected data, exploratory factor analysis, t-test, and ANOVA were run. The results indicated that the very tourists had experienced four types of risks while visiting the city of Isfahan including health, cultural and social, political, and economic ones. The results also revealed that the perception of the risks between the first-time visitors to Isfahan and those who had repeated visits to the city was significantly different in terms of political, economic, and health risks in this tourist destination. However, no significant difference was observed between the first-time visitors and those who had several visits to Isfahan in terms of their perception of socio-cultural risk level in the very destination.

The development of agility capabilities, accountability, and rapid adaptation to environmental changes are considered to be instruments for achieving a competitive advantage. Strategic agility is a developed type of agility which, besides rapid accountability, pays specific attention to the strategic aspect and to the prediction of changes in the urban environment before they occur. Most studies in agility-related and competitive-advantage field have been conducted on production agility as well as supply chain agility. In addition to clarifying the concept of strategic agility and the determining factors whereof, the current research aims at investigating into the effect of strategic agility on competitive advantage of manufacturing firms in the city of Semnan to help economic development of the city. Hence, at first, a model was devised for the competitive advantage based on dynamic capabilities theory, and, then, the model was confirmed by the results obtained from factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, and correlation coefficient indexes. The results indicated that the strategic agility has a significant effect on the competitive advantage of manufacturing firms in the city of Semnan. Besides, from among competitive advantage factors, strategic agility is highly correlated with innovation. Moreover, resource fluidity has been known to be the most significant factor in achieving a competitive advantage.

Municipalities, as the main organization for urban management and as the executive power for urban planning and management, to carry out projects and operationalize plans, require income resources accessible via different methods however, what the current article considers a challenge is the method(s) through which such income is to be provided. In fact, since 1983, following the economic independency of municipalities, in addition to the insufficiency of income resources, they have had to cope with the issue of unsustainable income and economic resources. In other words, the municipalities’ income is provided from the sections which, in long run, have many an adverse effect on different aspects of urban life besides, such income depends on the new activities of urban economics. The current article, through investigating into the income resources of the municipality of Tehran, aims at determining the extent of sustainability or unsustainability of them over a ten-year period during (2000-2009). The research method lends itself to descriptive-analytic one, emphasizing the use of statistical methods. The results indicate that, despite the efforts the municipality of Tehran has made to appropriately plan for obtaining sustainable income, a major share of the municipality income is provided from such unsustainable resources as construction taxes and the fines due to construction violations. Identifying effectively essential factors in local taxation (the one collected by the municipality), the article concludes by suggesting an appropriate model for increasing the contribution of such sustainable income to Tehran municipality. Implementing the very model, either in Tehran municipality or even in the other ones, it is argued that, besides an increase in the income resources of the municipality, the issue of sustainable income is taken into account.

The spatial structure of a city is the result of current spatial processes in a city and in a long run, has close relationship with the efficiency of urban development. Such a concept has a significant effect on the quality of competitiveness, livability, desirability, and the environmental invulnerability of the cities. In this regard, formulating a sustainable spatial structure depends on such factors as the justifiability of functions mixing, providing ease of transfer and access, justifiability of public transport and the extent of adaptation and flexibility, environmental quality, and observing the distance between business and residential centers, etc. The applied study, aiming at identifying and assessing the features of the spatial structure of the city of Sari, with a strategic approach, has been conducted in the framework of the concept of sustainable development in 2012. The research method was descriptive-analytical and the required data were collected via a questionnaire. In line with the purposes of the study through SWOT technique, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the urban spatial structure have been analyzed, and, then, to achieve a sustainable spatial structure, appropriate policies and strategies have been offered. Experiential analysis in the case study indicates that the current spatial structure of the city of Sari does not comply with sustainability indexes.

Nowadays, tourism industry, as one of the premium developing industries, plays an important role in the economy of countries and takes an active and effective part in improving cultural-social and environmental structure of the host country. Considering the increasing importance of tourism in the development of communities, the current research intends to make an investigation into the effect(s) of tourism on economic-environmental development of the city through the lens of the citizens and the officials of the city of Babolsar. The current research is applied, purpose-wise, and is descriptive, correlational, and upon surveying, method-wise. The data has been collected via documents and library sources as well as the researcher-developed questionnaire, observations, and interviews with related organizations and the heads of the households in the city of Babolsar. Upon Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Kendall-b tests, the results show that tourism has significant effects on economy and in addition to employment and income-providing, has resulted in increase in prices and property speculation. Environmentally, tourism has decreased farmlands, changing them into buildings, and increased services, pollution, ecology-destruction, and has made it easier to have access to cities. Thus, via proper planning and efficient utilization of tourists entry, it is possible to improve economy of the city, resulting in improvement in the city’s environment.

Houses, as heterogeneous, lasting, immovable, capitalizable, and consumable goods, having side effects, have attracted a significant part of household budget, expenses, and gross national fixed investment and play an important role in a nation’s employment and value added. One of the most important and emphasized factors in housing issue, hence, is predicting the price and the effective factors deciding the price of houses. The current study aims at predicting the price and the effective factors deciding the price of houses utilizing Hedonic Pricing Model. To this end, the current study, via analytical-descriptive method and utilizing field research, the effective factors deciding housing prices in the district 2 of the city of Sanandaj, i.e. the research population from among whom 174 were randomly selected, were determined via Hedonic Pricing Model whereby independent variable and dependant ones were probed. The results indicated that physical factors had much more effect on determining the housing price than accessibility factors in the district 2 of the city of Sanandaj. From among physical factors, the significant factors were area of the land, the area of the building, the type of materials used, and urban gas-providing system.  

Science and technology parks, as one of the infrastructures of science-based economy, have played a specific role in the development of regional, local, and urban economy. The current study, aiming at helping the development of the function of such parks, utilizing data-driven conceptualization-theory method, one of the qualitative methods, analyzes and identifies effective contextual factors in assessing the function of the parks across the nation. The research is descriptive purpose-wise and qualitative strategy-wise. The research population consisted of all managers and view holders of science and technology parks and the 17 participants out of the population were selected based on Snowball Sampling Method and were interviewed. The results show that effective factors in assessing the function of science and technology parks include considerations of science-based companies, considerations of internal and external interactions in the park, infrastructure consideration, cultural considerations, procedural and structural considerations, considerations related to services and consultations, managerial and staff-related considerations, considerations related to domestic and foreign potentials, large-scale and exterior considerations, and the considerations related to the assessing team of the park. The study concludes with applied suggestions for the development of such parks. 

Being aware of the inference of tourists regarding perceived quality, perceived value and mental obsession quality and value, satisfaction level, and behavioral inclinations to visiting tourist destinations are vital for marketing and successful destination management. The current study aims at investigating into the relationship between such variables utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The current study is practical, purpose-wise, and descriptive-surveying, method-wise. The population of the study was tourists who had visited the city of Noshahr during spring and summer of the year 2012. Based on available random sampling, 456 tourists were selected for the study. The results of Path Analysis indicated that the understanding of tourists of quality and value and their being preoccupied with a tourist destination has effects on tourists’ satisfaction. It was also indicated that such an understanding has positive effects on tourists’ inclination level to revisit the very destination. The findings of the current study result in better understanding of behavioral mechanisms which are appropriate basis for maintaining and increasing the number of tourists to an urban tourist destination. 

Empowering citizens, recently, takes a pivotal role in urban management participation. Therefore, the current research aims at investigating into the relationship empowering citizens and participation in managing cities and, also, offering methods for empowering citizens, encouraging them to more cooperate and to actively participate in managing cities. The research is applied, purpose-wise, and follows a descriptive surveying method. To collect data, a questionnaire has been utilized and the research population was all above-15-year-olds dwelling in the district 18 of Tehran municipality. Via random sampling and upon Morgan table, the sample size was decided to be 384 participants. Research data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially. The results show that there is a significant positive relationship between empowering citizens and their participation in managing cities. Moreover, the results show that the extent of empowerment and participation is lower than the average. Based on the obtained results, it is argued that any measure to empower citizens and to improve their participation is necessary and any effort to empower citizens to improve the extent of their participation in managing cities will be effective and beneficial.