Assessment of the good urban governance impact on urban livability (Case study: Bushehr City)

The existence of issues and problems caused by the rapid growth of urbanization in the country and the impossibility of urban community management by existing traditional methods and tools have doubled the need for change in the management method and cities management. This change can be realized using a good urban governance approach. The above-mentioned approach causes the sustainability, life quality and the living desirability in the cities to increase. The purpose of this study was to assess the good urban governance effect on Bushehr City’s livability. This research was applied in terms of goal and it was descriptive-analytical methodologically. In order to collect the research’s required data, two survey and document analysis methods were used. The research tool was a questionnaire. The statistical population of the study was the residents of Bushehr City with a population of 223,504 people, of whom 446 ones were selected as the sample size. Based on the results of documentary studies, the research indicators in the good urban governance section included transparency, efficiency and effectiveness, justice, legality, taking the responsibility, accountability, participation, and consensus-orientation and the urban livability indicators included public education, recreations and leisure (breaks), health and medical cares, personal and social security, affinity and locational belonging, participation and solidarity, consumer goods, employment and income, housing, possibilities and infrastructure services, transportation, pollution, visual quality (landscape) and the quality of the green space, whose relationship was analyzed using the one-sample t-tests, Pearson correlation coefficient and the multivariate regression. The results showed that the status of good urban governance and livability indices are undesirable in Bushehr City. There was also a weak to moderate relationship between the good urban governance and urban livability indices. Multivariate regression results also indicated the moderate and significant effect of good urban governance indicators on Bushehr City's livability. Among the eight indicators i.e. good urban governance, transparency indicators, justice, taking the responsibility with beta coefficient 0.607, 0.593 and 0.513 had the highest impact on Bushehr City’s livability respectively.