نشریه اقتصاد و برنامه ریزی شهری
سال سوم شماره 12 (زمستان 1390)

Green Economy and enforcing environmental taxes are among the modern instruments used in the process of economic activities following the norms of sustainable development. In effect, the issue of green economy includes all economic activities which not only prevent the damage to the environment but also help preserve it. The role the green tax plays is making a balance in the social security payments to compensate for the damage inflicted to the society. Metropolises and their municipalities, via such modern policy, may change their cities to a green one and through collecting such taxes make the sustainable development possible. This study, which is a practical one, utilizing the literature on the related research and the information collected from library research and the data about the green economy, concludes that the economy of the environment, as an interdisciplinary study, may help better understanding of the preservation of the form and the ecology of environment and through the interaction between urban economics and the economy of the environment, the path towards a sustainable development would get even shorter. Therefore, the research methodology applied in this study is descriptive analysis. Green economy and collecting environmental taxes take a political approach which result in the cooperation and interaction between urban economics and the natural ecosystems which are exploited by them. The main issue, in fact, is to reduce concerns about the effects of the negative growth of the economy on environment which is achieved by positive effects on the issues related to the green economy. This view is a borderline between natural and economic systems which have mutual effects on one another so that a sustainable development could be actualized. Hence, green economy is an interdisciplinary science and encompasses a wide society of different sciences which are related to economy and the environment. The results of this study probes into the necessity of the introduction of green economy to urban economics and also the necessity of the application of environmental taxes. The study also offers methods so that such financial sources in the municipalities of the country and especially in the metropolis of Tehran could be used in a targeted way.

The main difficulty the projects and urban renovation plans have is having no access to the financial and non-financial sources they require and due to the large scale of the issue and the financial limitations of the government section and municipalities, would not make the effective entering of such sections into the improvement and the renovation of the worn-out textures of the city possible. According to the quantitative goals of the fifth developmental plan (article 171), to attain the annual index of %10 in optimizing and renovating urban structures, an annual financial source of 400,000 billion Rials is required, the financing of which through the common methods is next to impossible. Hence, new approach should be thought of. The recently-heard “Sukuk (Islamic bonds) for investment purposes”, project shareholder, and investment deeds with asymmetric and accidental revenue are among modern financial instruments through which the financing of plans for urban renovation could be possible. However, achieving such an important goal requires sufficient knowledge of Islamic contracts and of modern instruments which are utilized in the financial markets both across the globe and nationwide. Such knowledge may open up practical methods for the managers and municipalities to finance urban renovation and reconstructing the worn-out structures. For example rent contract and the bonds for renting purposes may help release a large amount of locked-up capital and direct it to be used for urban renovation. Using such a method, it is possible for the municipalities to sell their administrative buildings to the companies which are active in specific fields and then rent them from the very companies. The obtained profit out of the selling of the buildings could be used to invest in the economically-justifiable urban renovation plans. This paper, first, investigates into the required financial sources for urban renovation projects and the ways for financing them and, then, via introducing some instruments and modern financing methods, paves the way for developing the use of such instruments for urban renovation purposes in near future.

Considering the maximum share of the taxes in the different incoming sources of municipalities, attempts should be made to collect such share based on legal frameworks. One of the important factors lending itself to a thorough study is the investigation of the behavior of the taxpayers and citizens in relation to the issue of paying taxes. The cooperation and participation of the citizens in paying their taxes would enable the urban management to take efficient measures to optimally finance and provide local services, to invest in the public infrastructures, etc. The experts state that in order to increase the citizens’ willingness to pay their taxes, such strategies and methods as running advertising projects and passing some motivation- raising rules like offering the possibility to pay taxes on installment plan and considering some form of rewards for encouraging the citizens to pay taxes are of great feasibility. This study investigates into the economic, social, and legal factors which are effective in the citizens’ willingness to pay their taxes in the municipality of the district 21 of Tehran municipality. The current study has been carried out at two levels of population including the staff at the municipality of the district 21 and the citizens in this district and the researcher, after determining the size of the sample for each of the groups, using the SPSS, has analyzed and probed his tripartite theories and the results show that economic and social factors affect the citizens’ willingness to pay their taxes to the municipality from among which the legal factor had the least effect.

The agencies for urban development are the institutions which pave the way for an appropriate interaction with the citizens and for the development of local economy, hence completing the economic role of the municipalities. Global statistics and indexes show an increase in the number of such institutions in the metropolises across the world. What encourages the management section of the metropolises for establishing and exploiting the agencies for urban development is their high efficiency and productivity, their relative independency of municipalities, and their taking roles in attracting capital, increasing the citizens’ cooperation, and bringing about positive effects on the improvement of the financial condition of the municipalities. This article investigates into the important role the agencies for urban development play in the dynamicity of urban economics and in the aid they offer to finance municipalities. Further, the relationship between the agencies and the funds for local development is investigated. Since the number of countries which make use of the funds for local development to improve the condition of local economy and urban financing is annually increasing across the globe, this article, in addition to giving a prospect to the decision-makers and urban managers, helps clarify the role such institutions play in the improvement of the financial condition of the cities and the municipalities.

Municipalities, as the main constituent of urban management, for a sustainable management and organizing the affairs in a city, require a sustainable income. In fact, the municipality’s providing the parameters for the quality of life in a city has always had its own costs; to this end, the municipalities are to have continuous income resources to settle such costs. The dependency of the municipalities on financial support by government and the dependency on such unsustainable incomes as selling density in metropolises of Iran have resulted in lack of balance in income and disorder in the process of managing the city by the municipalities. An inappropriate definition of the municipality’s financial independency and lack of a suitable strategy are among the reasons which make the municipalities inclined to sell density as the main source of finance. This paper investigates into the methods through which the cities may have sustainable income. Bouein Zahra, as a small city in Qazvin, has been a case for this study. Paying attention to the role the city plays and the potentials it has may be of best methods to make sustainable incomes. Therefore, the sustainable income for municipalities should have its root in the potentialities of the city itself.