Social Impacts of Organizing Cultural and Historical Streets: A Case study of Lalehzar Street

Lalehzar is one of the historical and cultural streets in Tehran. in many sources, is considered as an urban space to depict the history and culture of this city. At this time, the lack of social and cultural activities related to the historical features and the disruptive and unpleasant proximity of commercial activities to the historical and cultural context of this street, have led to many social problems. The idea of organizing, rehabilitating and renovating Lalehzar Street through revitalizing and paving was one of the solutions provided to enhance the status quo and to create a rich urban space in terms of social and cultural texture.The present research approach is based on the principles of Social Impact Assessment This research has a mixed-method design, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Findings and results of the analyses shows that the most important impacts in implementation and operational phases are the social impacts of the project. Impacts such as improving the quality of life, enriching leisure time, creating nightlife and increasing social interactions in the area scored the most points. In physical-ecological aspect, the most important impacts are the reduction of traffic load and the preservation of valuable historical buildings. Increasing the income of related businesses and enhancing the investment attractiveness are the most important economic impacts, and in cultural aspect the most important impacts are tourism development and increasing place identity. After identifying different impacts of this project, the mitigation hierarchy is proposed accordingly in the end of the paper.