Identifying and Prioritizing Factors Affecting People's Participation in the Urban Management Process (Case Study: Sangi and Shekari Neighborhoods of Bushehr City)

Participation of citizens in the process of urban management has a significant impact on the promotion of social capital, the effectiveness of executive policies of urban managers and the protection of the rights freedoms and also interests of citizens. The participation of citizens is significantly important; because with its application, different aspects of legitimacy, justice, effectiveness in policy making and implementation and protection of internal interests can be provided. The purpose of this research is to identify and prioritize factors affecting people's participation in the urban management of Bushehr. The methodology of this research is based on correlational research and quantitative techniques. The research case sample includes two traditional neighborhoods in Bushehr city consist of Sangi and Shekari district. The statistical population includes 200 residents of these neighborhoods (100 people per neighborhood) were selected as a sample. After the field survey and completing the questionnaires, the data were entered into SPSS software and analyzed with exploratory factor analysis and multivariate linear regression models. According to the findings, 23 indicators of participation with urban management can be categorized into 5 factors: "citizenship power", "participation effectiveness", "participation justice", "service participation", "beneficial participation", which in total, they explain 60% of the variance of local people's participation. The regression model also shows that the factors "justice in participation", "citizenship power" and "service participation" respectively have the greatest effect on the participation of neighborhood residents. From the comparison of the situation of the two neighborhoods, it can be seen that Sangi neighborhood has a better situation (0.18851) than Shekari neighborhood (- 0.19422) in terms of participation. At the end, based on the coefficient of influence of the factors in the regression analysis, the strategy for promoting the factors in Bushehr city has been explained.