The Role of Neighborhoods’ Centers in the Development of Urban Sustainability (Case Study: Mahmudabad Neighborhoods, Mazandaran, Iran)

As it is commonly understood, Urban neighborhoods play a significant role in developing urbansustainability as the smallest unit of city so that the formation and promotion of neighborhood identity, and focusingon social relationships would be in harmony with urban sustainability. It is believed that a dramatic change in spatialstructure of urban neighborhood include a decline in levels of political, social and economic role of neighborhoodsas long as they have had some disadvantages such as environmental pollution, marginalization, poor housing, socialpsychologicaland cultural damages, and particularly losing spiritual and material values as well in the recent decades. Tolimit these disadvantages associated with communities, neighborhood centers should be designed. The purpose of thisstudy will analyze the concept of neighborhoods and neighborhoods’ centers and their effects on urban sustainability bydescriptive- analytical approach and by gathering information through libraries and reviewing documents. This paperengages in analyzing components, dimensions, factors of sustainability and neighborhoods centers that integratedin the final model which characterized by practical-economic, environmental, empirical- aesthetic components; and,the validity of the used questionnaires based on factors of this model with 387 subjects (the selected sample) andthe reliability of the questionnaires by using Cronbach Alpha through Bartlett Test and KMO factor at high levelof 0/85 was proved. The level of significance of each component was reexamined by concerning their effects onurban sustainability. By applying multiple- regression test, the statistical outcomes reveal that designing based onenvironmental components have the utmost impact on neighborhoods sustainability.