Analysis of Explanatory Components of Knowledge-Based Urban Governance, a Study in Tabriz Metropolis

Introduction
The world is steadily transforming into urban places. Researchers have therefore focused their attention on the growing complexities of cities and thus urban policymakers need to design new strategies to enhance cities performance and sustainability. Hence, many managers have chosen cities to be smart, creative and knowledge-based. In this regard, the importance of applying knowledge management to organizations is quite clear and unquestionable. In the field of urban management, urban governance is a new approach that can provide new solutions to the problems of cities by integrating the knowledge-based components, especially in Tabriz metropolis. In line with these concepts, knowledge-based urban governance can help to solve urban problems in all aspects. For this purpose, the purpose of this present study is to analyze the realization of the knowledge-based urban governance in urban management of Tabriz metropolis for two sub-goals of evaluating the priority of the application of knowledge base urban governance indicators as well as forecasting the realization of urban governance approach through these indicators in management of the city.
Methodology
The current study is a descriptive-analytical research with practical targets. In order to collect the descriptive data, the document method referring to the valid theoretical reference has been used and the survey method with questionnaire tool has been used for the analytical part. For this purpose, opinions of 50 specialists have been collected and weighted in line with the research explanatory variables through the Delphi method. Multi-criteria Decision Making Model (FTOPSIS) has been utilized in order to reach the planning priorities for the application of knowledge-based urban governance in Tabriz urban management. At the same time, predicting the realization of knowledge based urban governance through its explanatory components has been conducted by Discriminant Analysis model.
Results and discussion
The results of this study show that the strengths and weaknesses of knowledge-based urban governance indices for its realization in Tabriz urban management can be useful for prioritizing them. The "knowledge creation" index is the most important indicator in this regard. In fact, the metropolitan government of Tabriz needs some form of policy to produce its specific knowledge in terms of urbanization. Policy-making means the formulation of theoretical and macro goals and strategies that provide practical solutions. This can be executed through some practices including creation of models based on new science and techniques to facilitate the awareness of stakeholders and citizens in the Tabriz metropolis to understand the developments, creating knowledge-based cores to produce knowledge-based structural models and frameworks for clarifying the information and communication process in urban management; the production of knowledge-based systems to teach citizens to participate in solving problems, challenges and urban development plans, and ultimately the production of flexible communication and information structures between urban managers and policymakers with other institutions in order to realize integrated urban management. Indeed, the importance of this issue is the precedence of knowledge production to its application and dissemination that should be noticed through mentioned indexes in Tabriz. The structure of urban management in the cities of our country and accordingly Tabriz metropolis is based on traditional and centralized structure according to the theoretical occurrence of knowledge associated with short-term urban development plans. However, in the developed countries, this process is moving towards making metropolitan management knowledgeable through macro-regional governance. The next point, which is based on the prediction of the knowledge-based urban governance, is the desirable status of "updating and classifying knowledge" in the field of urban management in the Tabriz metropolis. This could be due to the progress made in this area and the use of new tools in this regard but what underscores the weakness of this process is the mismatch of the identified priority for Tabriz metropolis in achieving knowledge-based urban governance to generate knowledge and create knowledge content production bases. Urban management in Tabriz metropolitan area seems to be focused on pre-prepared knowledge storage and accumulation And even disseminating it and using it to generate new content has no place in the face of urban challenges. This highlights the necessity of reforming the existing trend through the transition from knowledge consumerism to a vehicle for knowledge production related to the goals and prospects of urban development.
Conclusion
Among the most important challenges of urban management in developing countries and, consequently, in our country, there are the centralization of decision-making and policy-making, following traditional outdated approaches, the functional fragmentation of power holders, the lack of goodwill for Institutionalizing new managerial and planning approaches to urban management and not trying to defeat the dominance of top-down process of defining, explaining, and implementing programs and policies. Therefore, urban governance approach, as one of the newest approaches in the urban management process of the early 90s of the twentieth century, promises to share and cycle decision-making between guided management, civil society and the private sector, can improve its efficiency by applying knowledge management and provide rational and sustainable solutions to urban problems. In the same direction, the results of the research showed that for applying urban knowledge-based governance in Tabriz metropolitan management, the status of all explanatory indicators except “Creating knowledge-based models and contexts to inform urban laws and regulations to citizens and other urban stakeholders ” and “Adopting an approach to employ human resources familiar with the process of classifying, storing and updating urban development-related knowledge” has fundamental weaknesses which were identified through the prioritization of the indicators. Predicting the Knowledge Based Urban Governance Process through Discriminant Analyze Model, given these Indicators in the Tabriz Urban Management Process, also did not result in an acceptable prediction. Although "Knowledge Update and Classification" index is more important than any other indicator in predicting the realization of knowledge based urban governance approach in Tabriz urban management process, this is less than half of what is considered in the Discriminant Analyze Model as the basis for overall prediction. Therefore, it can be deduced that in order to realize the knowledge-based urban management in Tabriz, would be a top priority to set the conditions for the achievement of its indicators, especially the "knowledge utilization" index, which in the present study also had the lowest scores from the experts' point of view.