Urban harms in Iran and the main causes of their occurrence

Living in cities affects the individual and collective life of human beings. The multifaceted nature of these effects, as well as the processes and currents within urban communities, have preoccupied many thinkers from various branches of science. Due to the population growth and the development of urbanization and the increase of the problems of the urban system, especially big cities, in the modern era numerous studies have been conducted with the aim of identifying and reducing urban issues and harms. This study aims to conduct a meta-synthesis of qualitative research done on urban harms in Iran, so as to provide a systematic approach and discover new and fundamental topics. The research method of this research is qualitative and ‘applied’ in terms of purpose. In this study, using the meta-synthesis method (Sandelowski and Barroso’s seven-step method), articles and qualitative research related to urban harms were selected. Based on the analyses and meta-synthesis of the selected studies, the main components of urban harms in Iran were identified in four main categories. These four categories are economic harms, social harms, cultural harms and physical harms. Within these categories, unemployment and poverty, addiction and insecurity, sexual issues and environmental pollution are the most prevalent items. In these studies, factors such as unbalanced policies of governments towards the city, unfavorable governance for urban life, differences in quality of life, conflict between urban and rural life, population displacements, quality of physical infrastructures, quality of urban economy and social inequalities in central and marginal regions have been cited as the causes of the emergence of urban harm