Comparative assessment of environmental quality of the inefficient fabrics of Tehran city (Case study: The neighborhoods of Region 3 in District 17 of Tehran Municipality)

 
Extended Abstract
Introduction
The assessment of the quality of the urban environment is a mighty effective tool in urban planning and management because it can provide more specific information about the state of the living environment in any city. Also, it can be a rich source to inform people about the quality of the environment in which they live. Measuring the quality of the urban living environment is the first step to managing it. Urban managers, urban planners, and policymakers become aware of the shortcomings, needs and priorities of the urban environment, and are guided to the optimal management of the city and its development as they evaluate the quality of the living environment in cities. Assessing the quality of the urban environment can provide a deeper knowledge of the urban situation so that urban planning will lead to sustainable development. This research seeks to reveal a perspective of the quality of the environment and its spatial differences on a micro-scale by evaluating and comparing the quality of the environment in four deprived neighborhoods located in the south of Tehran. The results of this research can be useful for local managers and for targeting projects in line with priority issues.
 
Methodology
In this research, two types of data are used as follows: Documentary data (quantitative data) obtained from statistical documents such as the Final Results of the 2016 Iranian Public Census of Population and Housing (population blocks), the GIS file of land use parcels that are updated by the researchers through field observations, unpublished statistics that are received from a few offices especially the Municipality of Tehran and it’s sub-organizations such as the Organization of Parks and Green Spaces, the Organization for Beautification of Tehran City, the Organization of Crisis Prevention and Management, the Organization of Transportation and Traffic. Sample people including 378 out of 28,235 household heads who are living in the four studied neighborhoods are selected randomly to respond to the questions. A questionnaire is set to gather data from sample people. It has 26 questions which were evaluated by the sample people in 5 ranges from very good to very weak. The evaluations are then corresponded to the figures from 1 to 5 to enter into SPSS software.  The status of environment quality is calculated as a percentage of the optimum situation based on the following function:
 Q = Si /5*100
Where Q is the score of each index (percentage of the optimum state (and Si is the score of each index (in the ranges from 1 to 5(. The study area includes 4 neighborhoods located in the Area 3 of District 17 of Tehran municipality. It has an area of 243.4 hectares and a population of 82429 people.
 
Results and Discussion
The mean score of 45.7% for all 54 indicators indicates a weak position of quality of livingenvironment for the study area. 11 indicators are included in the category of “environmental indicators” whose average score is 50.7% of the optimal state. The same scores for the 16 indicators that are set as “physical indicators” and 28 indicators that are set as “social-welfare” are 45.2% and 44.0% respectively. It indicates a better condition in “environmental indicators” than those for the two categories. The average score of 5 indicators out of the total of 54 indicators is higher than 70% of the optimal state. These have the highest score and are as follows: “the area of the home (per capita)”, “the area of religious place (per capita)”, “the percentage of the places which are connected to urban sewerage network”, “the proportion of plots with an area of 50 m² or less”, and “the proportion of land using for education”. The neighborhood of Boloorsazi with a score of 50.7% of the optimum state shows a relatively better quality of environment than the other neighborhoods. After that, in the neighborhoods of Bagh-e Khazaneh, Abuzar, and Moghaddam, the environmental quality scores are 47.1%, 46.8%, and 38.2% respectively.

Conclusion
It can be concluded that the studied area has not provided suitable and standard conditions in terms of environmental, physical, economic, social, and cultural for the residents. These neighborhoods have been formed in an unplanned manner with the rapid migration of low-income families and are therefore facing shortages and problems in terms of services, facilities, infrastructures, and living conditions. To improve the quality of the environment in the studied neighborhoods, the following measures are suggested: 1. Facilitating the rules and regulations to speed up the renovation of dilapidated buildings; 2. Organizing and transferring economic activities that interfere with habitation and using the obtained lands for compatible, necessary and job-creating uses; 3. Accelerating the implementation of the plan to subdue the remaining suburban railway track; and 4. Taking advantage of the capacities of semi-public and semi-private spaces such as schoolyards and mosques for the extension of green spaces, green roofs, and green walls.