Presenting a Model of Sustainable Development based on Urban Branding Indicators the Case study of Bushehr Province

Nowadays, urban branding plays a necessary role in the process of sustainable development, which, due to the growing growth of urban development in cultural, economic, environmental, etc. dimensions, requires a targeted and comprehensive planning to keep pace with sustainable development. This research deals with the strategic analysis of urban branding and its effect on sustainable development indicators, so that by examining the current situation, it can help to improve the development and branding of the city and consequently achieve sustainable development in the province. The methods of collecting information are library studies and questionnaires. The statistical population of this research consists of two groups. The first group is experts who are aware of the subject, the number of people in this population is unknown and the sample size used is 50 people, and the second group includes policy makers and senior managers, employees with higher education in Bushehr province with a number of 37751 people, and the sample size is using Cochran's formula, the number of people is determined to be 382. The data used were collected through 4 questionnaires whose validity and reliability have been confirmed, and structural equations method with partial least squares approach and SMART PLS software were used to measure the structures and relationships between them. The results indicate that 89.9% of the changes in the dependent variable of development are predicted by the independent variable of the research, and at the confidence level of 95%, the variable of strategic analysis of urban branding has a positive and significant relationship with the development model. Therefore, it is suggested that the urban policy makers, in addition to the strategic analysis of the external and future environment, pay attention to the influence of urban branding factors and compile an urban planning document along with sustainable development.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
An urban brand is an effective tool for the development of cities. It is a distinguishing feature of cities that increases their success and affects value creation and social, cultural, political, and economic development, investment attraction and development, tourism industry boom, and technology transfer. Studies show that the leading cities in the world, which have become the main symbol of their country and are close to the indicators of sustainable urban development, are the cities that have made good use of the branding of their city or country. In the meantime, Bushehr province, having a strategic and geo-economic position, can play its role more in the southern region of Iran. In terms of having different potentials, this province can be the owner of a brand in various fields, but so far, in the discussion of preparing branding plans that can influence the development of this province and specifically provide a solution regarding the creation of a city brand. Based on this, the establishment and necessity of creating the brand of Bushehr province is an important issue that can be an effective factor in achieving sustainable development through gaining the credibility and trust of investors to establish various industries or attract domestic and foreign tourists.
 
Methodology
The current research was applied in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of the data collection method, based explicitly on structural equation modeling. The statistical community in this research is experts who are aware of the subject, including senior managers, policymakers, and opinionated faculty members of the province, and the second group includes all experts with high education from the executive bodies and government organizations of Bushehr province. The research questions were tested on structural equation modeling based on the partial least squares technique and SmartPLS2 software.
 
 
 
Results and discussion
According to the analysis of the existing articles and books, 93 indexes have been extracted from the books and articles related to the research topic. Considering that in the questionnaires sent to the experts, they were asked to remove the useless indicators and suggest useful indicators to be added to the questionnaires of the following courses, the number of indicators suggested by experts in urban branding index and development has been reduced to 5 and 81 indices, respectively. The PLS results show that all the variables of the first and second layers have good construct (convergent) reliability. Also, the mean square root of the variance extracted from the correlation between the research variables is higher, so the research variables have good divergent validity. The coefficient of determination shows that the independent variable of the research predicts 89.9% of changes in the dependent variable. The analysis between the two variables showed that the t-statistic value is 19.8, and because this value is more significant than 1.96, the hypothesis was confirmed. In addition, the results showed that urban branding with a path coefficient of 0.948 has a very positive effect. Strong on sustainable development.
 
Conclusion
While investigating the concept of urban branding, the present research tried to extract the existing status of the urban brand and the development indicators of Bushehr province and finally achieve a development model based on the analysis of the urban branding indicators of Bushehr province. The results of the analysis show that at the confidence level of 95%, the variable of branding indicators has a positive and significant effect on the sustainable development model of Bushehr province. Sustainable development is a broad method that seeks to balance economic, cultural, social, and environmental dimensions, and Bushehr province is at the developed level in the mentioned dimensions. Although, by examining the current situation of the province's development dimensions, there is a difference between the provinces' cities, and sustainable development is focused on the center of the province and several cities; therefore, urban branding policymakers should develop with the cooperation of residents and senior city managers and with common goals to create growth. Furthermore, success for the city and globalization will bring a new attitude. Focused strategy and cooperation between residents, business community, and urban management to be able to take preventive measures instead of responding to the ever-changing needs of the population are also necessary in order to develop the development planning of the province, in addition to the strategic analysis of urban branding paid attention to the effect of these factors on the dimensions of development, and by using the high potentials of the province and using the principles of urban branding to design, improve and modify plans and decisions, a big step should be taken in the direction of sustainable development.
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
 
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.