Reza Samim - Assistant Professor of sociology, Institute for Social and Cultural Studies

In the modern cities, various issues show up. One of them is consumption which is deeply interlaced with modernity as the city’s prevalent culture in its sociological sense. Amongst the most important manifestations of consumption in the today’s cities is the consumption of the elements that are applied by the assistance of urban policies and parallel to the beautification of the public spaces and called aesthetical elements’ consumption in the current article. It is now for a while that Tehran has offered different urban aesthetical elements in the public spaces. Considering the necessity of recognizing the extent to which urban aesthetical elements are consumed as well as their interrelationships with the individuals’ citizenship identity, the present article evaluates the urban cultural policies through a survey research in three neighborhoods in Tehran, namely Niavaran, Jannat Abad and Yaft Abad. The study sample volume includes 390 individuals from the foresaid three neighborhoods to whom a questionnaire was administered as the data collection instrument. In the end, the results indicated that there is a significant relationship between the consumption of urban aesthetical elements’ consumption and citizens’ identities. The interpretation of the form of this relationship allows the researchers evaluate the effectiveness of the urban cultural policies. The results of this evaluation have been offered in the conclusion section of the current research paper.

Cultural Consumption, urban aesthetics, aesthetical elements’ consumption, citizenship identity, Tehran