Place Attachment at the Neighborhood Scale: A Systematic Review of Two Decades of Research in Iran

Neighborhood attachment is a psychological bond with some affective, perceptual, and behavioral dimensions that are associated with positive outcomes such as self-esteem, comfort, strengthening social capital, and residents’ participation. The identification of factors affecting the neighborhood attachment is an essential step forward in sustainable neighborhood development. Using a systematic approach, this article sought to elaborate on the research articles done nationally from 2001 to 2019 on neighborhood attachment and to analyze their findings to explain this concept and the factors affecting it. Meanwhile, conflicting findings and research gaps were addressed and suggestions were made for future research so that a context is laid for expanding a local theory of Neighborhood Attachment. The results from the systematic review demonstrated that all researches have explained the "nature of neighborhood attachment" to emphasize the psychology of this relationship and its behavioral outcomes; however, they have failed to show deep psychological mechanisms in affective and perceptual dimensions. Researchers have tended to concentrate on the human and place dimensions of this bond when identifying the factors affecting it. The lack of place and neighborhood theory made it difficult to achieve a theoretically coherent conclusion. As for the human dimension, the effects of such variables as residence duration, gender, level of education, and housing ownership in different studies were identified to have contradicted each other. However, marital status and household income had a positive impact, and population mobility a negative effect on these bonds. As for the behavioral dimension of social participation, the most repetitive variables under study were significantly and positively related with the bonds, while the Psychological security and comfort demonstrated a significant and positive relationship with the bonds in the affective dimension.