Identifying Urban Management Challenges in Realizing Sustainable Non-financial Tools for Providing Resources to Municipalities (Case Study: Langarud City)

Providing sustainable resources for municipalities is one of the fundamental challenges of urban management in Iran. The long-term dependence of municipalities on unstable financial resources such as density sales and land use change has led to instability in physical development and exacerbated social and environmental gaps in cities. In the meantime, non-financial instruments such as transfer development rights (TDR), partnership contracts such as BOT and BOO, and incentive policies based on facilitation have been proposed as new solutions to increase resource efficiency and reduce direct reliance on cash revenues of municipalities. This research was conducted with the aim of identifying the main challenges in the path of realizing sustainable non-financial instruments for providing resources to municipalities and used the descriptive-analytical research method using the fuzzy Delphi technique and qualitative content analysis. The results of the research show that these instruments face numerous obstacles in five main dimensions including legal, institutional, cultural, economic, and participatory challenges. The results indicate that the effective implementation of these tools requires structural reforms in the urban governance system, revision of legal frameworks, enhancement of institutional capacities, social trust building, and data-driven development in municipalities. Finally, solutions at the policy and executive levels are presented to address the identified obstacles.