Abstract

Background and purpose
Given the prevalence of urbanization as the primary form of social life, sociologists and urban policymakers have concentrated on exploring the relationship between individuals and the city and how urban spaces take shape through this interaction. It is crucial to design these areas considering the social circumstances associated with the city. Following the expansion of urban spaces and the development of leisure and consumption, social harm has been raised, especially at night. This study aims to investigate nightlife in the city of Tehran as an emerging field from a physical, social, and economic point of view, with possibilities and consequences for urban sustainable development, which can be created in this field of placemaking or by intervention, its process with a possible challenge. This aspect can either facilitate advancements in this field or make challenges to the urban development process through intervention. This research, with a sociological approach, seeks to understand and explain the most important capacities and consequences of nightlife on the sustainable development of the city of Tehran, emphasizing on the three areas of Tajrish Square, Railway, and Si Tir Street. The main issue of the current research is what capacities and consequences nightlife has for urban sustainable development in the three mentioned areas from a sociological point of view.
Methodology
This study employed the grounded theory method in Tajrish Square, Railway, and Sea Tire Street. The mentioned areas were selected according to their economic, socio-cultural, and physical differences. Also, the mentioned areas were among the urban areas where night activities were going on significantly. The collection of information continued until the point of theoretical saturation and no new information was received from the research field. So in each area of the research, 10 people and a total of 30 people were interviewed as a sample size. After the the stage classification and coding of research data was done based on experimental data, observed events, and presented narratives. At this stage, using the systematic approach of Strauss, Strauss, and Corbin, open coding was done to identify the concepts of this research, their characteristics, and dimensions, and in the next stage, axial coding was done in which the causal conditions, context, and consequences were compared to the central categories. It was analyzed and explained and finally, using selective coding of the available data, it was formulated in a theoretical model.
Findings and discussion
Our results show that nightlife in economic, social, and physical dimensions has positive and negative characteristics that affect sustainable urban development. Considering the positive aspect, nightlife offers opportunities such as generating employment, stimulating the urban economy, fostering competitiveness for citizens' benefit, enhancing social vibrancy, fostering expanded interactions and family bonds, cultivating new identities, and contributing to dynamism. Regarding a negative perspective, the present nocturnal lifestyle comes with outcomes such as the stratification in the utilization of nighttime services, a rise in social inequalities, the proliferation of informal employment, social harm, and the erosion of local culture. These factors have detrimental effects on the trajectory of sustainable urban development.
Conclusion
Despite the signs of nightlife in Tehran, the urban governance system in Tehran lacks a comprehensive plan and strategy to face this phenomenon. The lack of necessary urban infrastructures including the unbalanced spatial development in the city, the high costs of activities and services at night, the limited hours of night activities, and in some cases the misunderstanding of the nature of nightlife has resulted in the silence of this issue in the city and what is called Nightlife is considered by the city governance bodies to be moments that are mostly subject to occasions such as the holy month of Ramadan, Muharram days, etc. The non-conservative facing of the urban governance system with this phenomenon, legalizing it and strengthening the cultural and social dimensions by the requirements of the Iranian society, has removed the nightlife from the current economy-oriented one-dimensional state and provides its possibilities for sustainable urban development.