The Evaluation of Effective Indicators in the Implementation of Good Urban Governance in Metropolises (Case Study of Kermanshah)

The subject of urban management seemingly arose ever since the emergence of cities. In the management process of cities, different groups play a variety of roles in managing urban affairs according to the extent of their power and awareness. During the recent decades, pluralist approaches in new fields of management have followed relativism which demonstrates a major paradigm shift in this context. According to the new paradigm, governments are no longer the sole players in the urban management field; new players include the government, people, and non-government organizations. Under the title of good urban governance, the new paradigm shows a shift from conventional policymaking systems to a multilevel and multirole approach. The present study seeks to provide answers to the following questions: What is the status of good governance indices in Kermanshah? What is the status of such indices among the different groups involved in the urban management?  

Examinations into the background of Iranian city management in general and Kermanshah, in particular, especially during the recent years show the absence of necessary social and cultural platforms for the presence, interference, and the participation of people in urban management or the lack of legal instruments for this end. The results of studies conducted by Sharifian Sani (2003), Kazemian (2003), Akbari (2006), Taghvayi and Tajdar (2009), Shamaei, Adinehvand, and Haji Zadeh (2012), Mortazavi (2013), Ebrahimzadeh, Adinehvand, Haji Zadeh, and Ghadami (2013), Ahad Nezhad (2004), and Azizi (2014) are in line with the global experiences of the World Bank, McKinley (2007) and others, all pointing to the fact that both the public sector and civil societies have not played a significant role in the field of urban management.

The general method used in this study compared the opinions of ordinary people and urban planning and management experts with respect to the good governance indices in Kermanshah. The present inquiry is an explanatory and comparative study. The total population of the study included the entire residents of Kermanshah who are more than 906754 individuals. The sample population was calculated using Cochran’s formula with 5% margin of error and 95% of confidence level. The sample population included two groups consisting of 322 ordinary citizens and 34 urban experts who were all chosen randomly.
The reliability of questionnaires was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha. The results showed the reliability of all components was more than 0.7 which is acceptable based on the present recognized rules.
Using SPSS, independent sample t-test was administered to analyze the data. T-test enables a comprehensive assessment of both independent groups with regards to the mean difference between two sample populations using data from two independent samples. T-test can be employed when there is a normal distribution in both sample populations. If the distribution test of the two communities is normal and their variance is equal, the appropriate test statistic is selected. Therefore, the main objective is to examine the difference between the mean values of the two independent samples in the test.

In this study, t-test was carried out for two independent samples. The test was conducted between the independent variable of people and experts as a nominal variable and the good governance indices as an interval variable. The obtained results from the demographic data showed nearly equal participation of men and women. Moreover, 33.4% of individuals were high school graduates, while 41.6% and approximately 25% were university undergraduates and graduates, respectively. To test the hypotheses, first Levene’s test was conducted to test the equivalence of variances. The results of Levene’s test was significant in statistical terms, i.e. F (354) = 16.7, P =.000.
The results of t-test were also significant: t (55.062) = 12.046, p < 0.001.
According to the results, the experts with a mean value of 3.79 and standard deviation of 0.641 had significantly a higher mean value compared to the people with a mean and standard deviation of 2.29 and 1.076, respectively.
Differences in the average level of attitudes between experts and people was -1.508. This difference with a confidence interval of 96% was in a range of -1.878 to -1.138.
Cornees D. with a value of 2.17 shows the considerable difference between the mean values of scores demonstrating the fact that individuals’ affiliations with a specific group highly impact their attitudes and judgments. Accordingly, the null hypothesis is rejected based on the results of two independent sample t-tests, while the other hypothesis regarding the presence of a significant difference between mean values of people and experts’ opinions with respect to the good urban governance indices is confirmed.

The results of the study showed that the good urban governance indices in Kermanshah still involve a considerable difference with the hypothesized mean value of 3 highlighting the need for a major development; the onset of such a development may involve conceptualization and institutionalization which can result in the transcendental stage of culturalization in the area of good urban governance. Evidence shows that regardless of the high allocation of resources in this city, the presence of numerous issues can be observed with respect to the absence of people’s participation in managing the city and districts, low functionality of the ongoing projects by the conventional administrations, lack of responsiveness from urban managers, lack of adherence to the rules and unclear decision-making by the urban management, lack of compliance to the equity principle and fairness in the allocation of scarce resources to the entire population, particularly overlooking the vulnerable strata, and the absence of a strategic attitude through which a promising outlook could have been drawn for the city. Iranian cities require major developments in their administrative processes. As the first step, such developments require acknowledging the people as an essential part in urban management; the second step is to provide opportunities for the civil sector. It should be pointed out that synergy among the three governmental, public, and civil sectors is regarded as an umbrella term in urban management. This pattern is a new paradigm in the management of large cities, which has been formed in front of a government run the cities, which often has low efficiency.