Urban prosperity, as one of the key concepts in the modern literature of urban planning and sustainable development, represents the ability of a city to achieve a balance between various economic, social, environmental and physical dimensions. Today, rapid population growth, concentration of economic activities and increasing demand for urban services have caused cities to face challenges in the field of inequality, pollution, weak infrastructure and reduced quality of life. In such circumstances, assessing the level of urban prosperity and identifying the factors affecting it is a fundamental necessity for smart urban management and future-oriented decision-making.
The city of Bojnourd, the capital of North Khorasan Province, has undergone extensive changes in physical and demographic dimensions in recent years, such that numerous challenges have prevented it from achieving prosperity. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to investigate and evaluate the level of prosperity of Bojnourd and determine the importance of each of its five dimensions with special emphasis on the environmental sustainability dimension.
The present study is an applied study conducted using a descriptive-analytical method. The required information was compiled through a study of documentary sources and a researcher-made questionnaire based on the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in the five main dimensions of prosperity (productivity, urban infrastructure, quality of life, social justice and inclusion, and environmental sustainability). The statistical population is university professors, managers, and specialists in Bojnourd city who were selected purposefully and using the snowball method. SPSS software and the Friedman test were used to analyze the data to rank the effective components. The results showed that urban infrastructure, with an average rating of 4.57, has the greatest impact on the prosperity of the city. The dimensions of environmental and social justice, quality of life, and productivity are in the next ranks, respectively.