An Evaluation of Responsiveness of Social, Economic, and Ecological Indexes of Sustainability in Neighborhood Level: The Case of Deh Vanak, Tehran

Unsustainability is one of the problems in Iranian communities, especially in the neighborhood level. However, a more fundamental problem has overshadowed the indexes of sustainability. Indeed, there is no assessed framework to recognize unsustainability and its strategies in the localized knowledge of Iran. The main purpose of the present study is to compile and propose a framework which clarifies the main concepts of sustainability in terms of environmental variables, general norms, and objective indexes of assessment for the localized Iranian context. Moreover, there are many ambiguities in understanding the main constructs and norms of sustainability as an environmental quality concept. To this end, in the first step, the key elements of sustainability including society, economy, environment, and management have been identified. Then, their indexes and assessment criteria have been tabulated. Next, it was tried to evaluate the responsiveness of the criteria based on the three main indicators of place including society, function, and environment in a case study conducted on Deh Vanak, Tehran, Iran. This study is a mixed method one. As such, the related literature was reviewed and, based on in-depth direct observation and interview, the questions about the effectiveness of the criteria have been answered in Deh Vanak. To investigate the effectiveness of the criteria, a series of t-tests were conducted through SPSS. The results indicated that the desirability of all extracted indexes except for ‘greenness’ and ‘belongingness’ were inappropriate. In addition, some solutions have been introduced for the future sustainability of the district.