Identifying and Modeling the Principles of Community Regeneration with a Social Sustainability Approach Drawing on the Delphi Method

Declined urban neighborhoods are those parts of cities that failed to establish a balanced economic, social, and functional relationship with the rest of the city during the industrialization and urban development process. Indicators of urban poverty and deteriorated quality of life are visible in such neighborhoods. Actually these declined areas do not have the ability to compete or exchange economic, social or cultural benefits with other part of cities and other urban areas without government support. Social sustainability is a manifestation of sustainable development, which in recent years has gained increased recognition as a fundamental component of sustainable development, beginning to receive political and institutional endorsement within the sustainable development agenda, and the sustainable urban regeneration discourse.Moreover, regeneration is considered as one of the most significant, most effective approaches to improve and renovate urban neighborhoods. Urban regeneration tackles "quality of life" issues in communities through working to narrow the gap between the most disadvantaged neighborhoods and the rest of society. In this policy debate often an area based approach, integrating horizontal policies, with sustainable perspectives, collaborative inhabitants, is advocated.    The aim of this analytical review is to establish the dimensions and components of urban community regeneration, its substantial principles, and supporting policies with an eye on social sustainability, and its conceptual framework. In line with its goals, this policy study is a library and document research involving content analysis of theoretical texts. Furthermore, drawing on the Delphi method and based on a conceptual model, an analysis concerned with community regeneration was carried out assuming a social sustainability approach.Also, the opinion of experts rating 4 aspects and 21 factors derived from theoretical principles were used to finalize the community regeneration model.The findings are suggesting that the principles extracted from an initial literature review comprised social participation, social capital, social composition, social coherence, sustainable policy (governance), welfare and quality of life, the environment, services and housing, preserving the identity and cultural heritage, security and wellbeing, being community-based, and equal access (to housing, services, open spaces, jobs, resources, etc.) can be classified into four groups (sustainable environment and space, sustainable community, sustainable economy, and governance). Of the 21 factors identified through the literature review, and according to the experts’ opinions, the sense of belonging, sustainable transportation, and information systems are the essential criteria, whereas the remaining ones except resilience received an acceptable score in the hierarchy of the criteria. Based on the nine principles extracted in this study, a conceptual model was presented in whose aspects the factors feature a significant order. At the conclusion this article presented, 32 supporting policies which can be used in the process of neighborhood regeneration in order to improve social sustainability. Concurrent attention to these strategies as a balanced set of issues is important. Because the fulfillment of each policy without considering the others will complicate the situation of the declined neighborhood and its local community. Moreover involvement of local communities during the process, is the key success point of the neighborhood regeneration programs.