Evaluating the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Public Participation Processes in Urban Management Decision-making; Examining the Experience of the “Arezoo-haye Tehran” Campaign

Over the past few years, urban planners and managers have increasingly realized the importance of citizens' participation in urban planning and management. They have taken steps to make participation closer from theory to practice. Although many of these efforts have yet to be very successful, it is essential to evaluate participatory processes to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of public participation. In order to achieve more efficient participatory processes in the path of good urban governance, this study evaluates the "Arezoohaye Tehran" campaign as a public participation process to evaluate the impact of such processes on citizens' trust, with a particular focus on electronic participation. In this research, the qualitative approach is employed, and to evaluate the campaign, it has attempted to utilize the experience and perspectives of a variety of actors who have participated in this process, so several in-depth semi-structured interviews have been conducted with city managers, experts, and social activists involved in the project. Additionally, the messages of virtual networks have been analyzed to understand the experiences of citizens participating in this project. Qualitative content analysis and coding methods have been used to analyze the content of interviews and messages on virtual networks. The findings of this research show that pessimism and mistrust of citizens towards public and government institutions and the lack of a suitable environment and preparation for interaction are among the prerequisites for the failure of the campaign, inconsistency between the executive bodies during the process and the lack of mutual learning and not reaching a collective agreement as a result of the process. The dreams of Tehran are considered.