Community - Based Development (neighborhood-based) from Idea to Action: A Case Study of Community- Based Development in Tehran

Community-based development in Iran has often been translated as neighborhood-based development. In the local development model, the local community is considered very general, whereas in the Community-based development model, the local community is focused on local contexts and structures that have social issues and problems according to the development capacities based on the local community. Urban management in Tehran in the last decade with a series of different measures (Distinguish neighborhood boundaries, The construction of community center (Saraye Mahale), implementation of social, cultural and health programs, at the level of urban neighborhoods, etc) have sought to institutionalize this type of development. The present article focuses on theoretical and experimental issues in the field of local community development and the requirements of this type of development to examine its challenges in Tehran and the set of measures that have been taken in this regard. Relying on the data of two studies in Tehran (pathology of neighborhood management and social and cultural typology of Tehran neighborhoods), which has been done quantitatively and qualitatively, the article addresses the challenges of this type of development in Tehran. The findings of the paper show that development is based on a local community based on contexts and requirements, and focuses on specific goals and specific contexts of cities, not all contexts. While the strategies of development based on local community (Council elections, establishing Community center (Saraye Mahale) and neighborhood management, etc.) without considering these contexts and requirements of this development based on local community in Tehran This has led to the failure of these strategies in the development of the local community and the achievement of the consequences of this type of development after the implementation of these strategies. Lack of attention to the contexts and requirements based on the development of the local community in Tehran, the activities carried out have led to spending a lot of money so far, which seems to have not yielded significant results in this area. At the end, several specific suggestions are presented to address the challenges of this type of development, with the main emphasis on changing the perception of local communities that should be the focus of development.