A Method for Analyzing the Features of Community in the Structure of Urban Neighborhood; Case Study: Nazi Abad, Tehran

In addition to the physical characteristics of urban neighborhoods, they differ from social and cultural dimensions. This dimensions include; residents characteristics, cultural, social interaction and shared values that called “community” in the neighborhood as a fixed and identified place. The creation of community is a complex and dynamic socio-cultural process. Communities are significant factor in increase sense of confidence, dignity, belonging and participation of residents. It seems that what was understood as ‘community’ was often rooted in this realm of the familiar but mundane and everyday interactions – chatting at the post office or hairdresser s and conversations related to the school, the bowling club and suchlike. Community was constructed through this myriad of intangible and fleeting, routine and mundane interactions in various localized settings. Community concept in the last decade has become one of the important part of urbanism literature In the word. But in Iran, the concept of community so far has not been considered. The aim of this paper over the overall definition of community and understanding the main features is its. Furthermore introduce an efficient and structured method for analyzing the features of community in the urban neighborhood. Because of this gold was done extensive library study that helps to clarify characteristic of community. This research focuses on an urban neighborhood in Tehran: “Nazi abad” in the south west of Tehran. The development of this neighborhood began from 1940’s (the industrialization period of Tehran).The area was constructed based on an urban development planed this plan all the public spaces and cultural/educational centers were considered. As it mention earlier The concept of community is complex and multidimensional so requires a special methodology for study. Methodology of this paper is descriptive, based on deductive reasoning using syntactic strategy (qualitative – quantitative) with more focus on qualitative strategy specially phenomenology. Theoretical paper was based on Schultz ideas about place, Ralph and cross ideas about sense of belonging to place and contemporary literature about the social values. The validity of the phenomenological approach is an appropriate means of interpretation. In this paper the relative validity of qualitative methods was trying to pay attention to basic principles of qualitative methodology such as; emphasis on natural locations, emphasizing the meaning an interpretation and undeastanding of the interviewees. Interviews was conducted with 8 group of people (teenager, young, middle – age and elderly) in 2 group of men and women that in the end include 22 depth interviews. The paper first presents a brief overview of the methodology, Theoretical framework and then reviews findings covering 22 respondents living in nazi abad which represent their public life in nazi Abad s public realm. Assessment result show the existence of place identity, social capital, sense of belonging, sense of place and belonging to a community in the nazi abad neighborhood. Studies indicate that should be introduced nazi abad as a community because it contains all of the community feature.