Identification of the Methods, Resources and Barriers of Achieving Sustainable Urban Income (Case Study: Urmia Municipality)

The management of city affairs is done through sustainable and unsustainable incomes, and in Iran, the highest rate of sustainable incomes make up about 30% of the total incomes. Therefore, in Iran, the challenge of achieving sustainable incomes for local government is of great importance. The present study aimed to identify methods, resources and barriers to achieving sustainable urban income in Urmia municipality.
According to the subject, the method of qualitative research was carried out through completing a checklist on the agenda with 12 scientific and executive experts who had been selected through the snowball sampling method. They had sufficient control over the concept of sustainable urban income and relied on this type of income in their responsibilities while they are familiar with different dimensions. Open and deep interviews were conducted and the results of the interviews were analyzed based on the theme analysis technique.
Based on the results of the study, the following 10 themes were identified as “investment”, “outsourcing”, “financial management”, “information technology”, “organizational assessment”, “research”, “delegating governmental authority”, “human resources”, “communications” and “miscellaneous”. There were also 6 themes identified for resources: “tolls”, “Land and buildings”, “cost management”, “bonds”, “advertising” and “miscellaneous” and finally the following 8 themes were identified as barriers to sustainable urban incomes: “manpower”, ”injustice”, “transparency”, “performance weakness”, “corruption”, “law”, “people” and “miscellaneous” were identified.
In this research, the methods, resources and barriers to achieving sustainable incomes in Urmia municipality were presented as well as suggestions for increasing this type of income. In short, it should be stated that the Urmia municipality will attain a decent level of sustainable incomes, if it will be able to consider the proposed ideas in this study.