Re-Creating the Historical-Cultural Context of Urmia City for the Realization of Part of Sustainable Development

Introduction :

Urmia City is one of the historical and cultural cities of Iran. Like many other cities, the historical-cultural contexts in this city have been worn out and are facing many problems. In the historical-cultural context of Urmia city, the per capita income of the residents is lower than the urban average and the unemployment rate is higher than other urban areas. The residential units are not durable and the density of people in the residential unit is higher than the average of the city. This part of the city of Urmia has many environmental problems and the residents’ access to urban services and the state of urban infrastructure are inadequate. The high level of social anomalies and the context of their occurrence is evident compared to the urban average. Finally, the historical and cultural identity in this part of the city has been neglected and the social dignity in these areas has been greatly reduced, which has led to the replacement of social strata. This research seeks to answer the question that to what extent does the reconstruction of the historical-cultural context of Urmia City help to achieve sustainability in the studied context? Therefore, in the current research, the most important concern and problem of the researcher is to deal with the regeneration of the historical and cultural fabric of the city of Urmia, to identify the deprived and inefficient areas of this part of the city through an analysis of the role of urban regeneration and the realization of the principles of sustainable urban development in these areas.

The current research is descriptive and survey in terms of its nature and work content. On the other hand, this research is practical in terms of its purpose, because the principles and techniques developed in the research can be used to solve practical and real problems and have practical applications. In terms of time, it is cross-sectional. In-depth interviews and questionnaires were used to collect data. The statistical population of the research includes the population living in the historical and cultural context of Urmia city, which is 31811 people, and the sample size was 380 people based on Cochran’s formula. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to measure the reconstruction of the historical-cultural context. The questionnaire is arranged on a 5-point Likert scale. The content validity of the questionnaire was checked using the opinions of professors in this field. In addition, construct validity was used. Composite reliability was used to check the reliability of the questions. First, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to determine the normality of the data. The test of the research questions was examined and after confirming the normality of the data, Pearson’s correlation and confirmatory factor analysis of the second order were used. Calculations were done in SPSS, Amos, and Smart Pls software environment.

The second-order factor analysis shows that the factor loadings of all indicators of sustainable urban regeneration are greater than 0.4 and are significant at the 95% probability level. Social dimensions with a factor load of 0.91 have the greatest impact on sustainable urban regeneration in the central context of Urmia City. After that, cultural dimensions with a factor load of 0.88, economic dimensions with a factor load of 0.83, physical dimensions with a factor load of 0.79, management dimensions with a factor load of 75, and environmental dimensions with a factor load of 0.68 in the next row are located based on the findings of the present research. All the physical, economic, social, cultural, environmental, and management indicators have a significant relationship with the dependent variable of re-creating the historical-cultural context of Urmia city, and respectively indicators of social (0.609), cultural (0.553), economic (0.525), physical (0.411), managerial (0.382), and environmental (0.335) have the most to least effect on the dependent variable. Therefore, all stability indicators have an effect on the dependent variable according to the coefficient of determination (2R). It can be concluded that the most direct and indirect impact is related to the social index with a direct effect of 0.609 and an indirect effect of 0.402, followed by a cultural index with a direct effect of 0.553 and an indirect effect of 0.375.

The main reason for conducting a significant amount of studies in the field of urban regeneration by researchers and urban planners around the world is that this phenomenon will be able to integrate all economic, cultural, social, environmental, and physical aspects of the structure. Consider and integrate the city. There is a lot of cultural diversity in Iranian cities, and this has led to the launch of a new process of urban regeneration, which is to motivate and improve urban sustainability. The indicators that were examined in this research. They should be significantly prioritized in the future urban reconstruction projects in Urmia city, especially in the historical-cultural section. Urmia City has its own specific cultural movement or trend in the field of sustainable urban regeneration through cultural groups. But the cities of Iran in general and Urmia, while benefiting from different ethnic groups, are still far from sustainable regeneration, because they do not have the necessary infrastructure for that process, including socio-cultural functions. These roles come from a diversity of people with different ideas, desires, occupations, and innovative influences. In the city of Urmia, residents are not serious factors or human resources in planning, implementation, and changes. Therefore, the cultural capitals that are the result of the sustainable urban regeneration process have not been formed in this city (historical-cultural context). Also, different ethnic groups in the culturally homogeneous neighborhoods of Urmia still do not have relevant effects on spatial changes in them. Therefore, pluralistic public cultures, like those created in other countries, have not been formed and stable public spaces have not been created in cities, especially Urmia. The findings of this research can provide important social facts for the development of regeneration planning to the urban policy makers of Iran and Urmia city, which helps to improve the social capital of cultural-ethnic groups.