The Growth of Urbanism and the Sense of Belonging to Localities

Belonging to the neighborhood represents a positive perception of people towards the residential area in the city. Belonging to the location and the consequences of its loss in recent decades has become one of the important issues in the field of urban studies. The present study seeks to investigate the impact of urban development on the reality of the sense of belonging to the localities. The continuation of the neighborhood bond is a kind of commitment to residents towards their habitat and their willingness to maintain relationships with them over time and in different stages of life. In this regard, this research uses the topic of urbanism Lewis Worth's theory and theories of the Chicago school, and the concept of the sense of belonging to the locality applies McGraith and Chavez's sense of belonging to the community of places, the identity of the place of Rolf and Raoul and the system theory of Caesar and Janowitz. The sense of belonging to place as a dependent variable consists of objective, subjective, cognitive and emotional dimensions. Three districts (number 2, 13 and 20) were determined from 22 districts of the Tehran municipality as the population of this study. Four neighborhoods of each neighborhood and then blocks of these neighborhoods were randomly selected. The main method of research is survey using the questionnaire technique .the data collected at the level of the population distribution of 391 people aged 20 and over. Finally, the data were analyzed using correlation coefficient analysis, ANOVA and multivariate regression analysis. Some of the most important results of the correlation between variables indicate that there is a negative and significant correlation between urban lifestyle, tendency towards extensive relationships in the city and attachment to urban areas with a feeling of belonging to the places. In addition, the results show that there is a positive and significant correlation between the length of stay, the type of ownership of a residential home and the feeling of belonging to the places. Meanwhile, there is a meaningful relationship between the contextual variables such as age and the income level of population with their sense of belonging to their place of living.