Investigating the Effect of Capability and Functionality Indicators of the Municipality on the Presence and Participation of the Citizens (Case Study: Municipality of Mashhad)

Abstract

There has been a lot of discussion on the municipality's financial bottlenecks, and many researchers suggest that it should have a stable income. However, the municipality is a service institution and has to pay for its services from the Citizens who benefit from these services. Therefore, if the municipality is unable or unwilling to receive these costs, there must be a flaw in the institution's policies or functions. Hence, this study examines the hypothesis of the existence of the policy and the functional status of the municipality. The study has used a descriptive and analytical method to collect the required data from 150 experts in the field of urban planning. The collected data were analyzed using a one-sample t-test, Friedman test, as well as confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equations based on variance using the ordinary least squares (PLS) method. The results showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between the function and quality of the developed policies, as well as the capability and performance indicators of Mashhad Municipality. But because the quality and functionality of the designed policies are not at the appropriate level, the capability and functionality indicators have a fundamental weakness. The same factor influences the municipality's failure to pay for the services provided to the Citizens. The Citizens consider this institution not a service but a governing organization.

Keywords

• capability weakness
• functional indicators
• citizens participation
• municipality
• mashhad