Citizen Participation in Municipal Activities (Case Study: Gonbad City(

Public participation in municipal decision-making process is a key element of urban comprehensive development and increasing peoples’ participation in municipal activities can play an important role in urban balance. The aim of this study was to analyze the amount of participation of citizens in Gonbad in the management of municipal affairs and also identifying benefits and barriers and providing strategies to attract citizens’ participation in improving the management of the city. This research in term of nature and purpose is practical and its research method is descriptive-analytic. The statistical population is all household heads in Gonbad that utilizes the Cochran formula using simple random sampling of selected 320 samples . The data were collected by questionnaire and were analyzed using SPSS software. Cronbach's alpha was obtained for different parts of the questionnaire (87.3) which reflects the high capabilities of trust and confidence of research tools. The results of the research showed that a significant relationship at the level of 99% between the independent variables that involve citizen satisfaction municipal services, which depicts the trust of citizens in relation to city managers. Awareness of the citizens of the town management plan and association of citizens was the dependent variable. The results of analysis of variance showed that between the variables such as gender, age, education, economic and social status - with the amount of citizen participation there is a significant difference.