Prioritizing assignment of duties and assignments to neighborhood management (Mashhad neighborhood social council)

In this study, municipal task and duties were divided to sovereign and non-profit operational ones. Then, using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and Topsis technique among those 25 non- commercial tasks, 8 main tasks were determined to be devolved to neighborhood social councils. To do this, 8 parameters were defined: internal resistance of Mashhad municipality body to task devolution, incoordination and ineffectiveness of neighborhood social councils, non-coherence and inefficiency of neighborhood councils, task conflicts, non-professionalism, external actors, neighborhood special features and legal impediments. Some of these parameters are internal (related to neighborhood councils) and some are external. Questionnaires distributed to head of neighborhood councils, city council’s members and municipality employees. It is found that preparing neighborhood experiments has the highest priority. Planning and suggesting urban plazas, supervision of sport activities in municipality regions, participation in maintenance and providing social symbols and places, participation in social harms reduction, supervision and suggesting urban furniture and equipment plans, supervision and suggesting plans for city entrance and walls and participating in civics are the next priorities respectively.