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Informal settlements, as one of the most important challenges of urban management in Iranian metropolises, require the adoption of new approaches with an emphasis on public participation and a community-based approach in the field of local planning and development. Within this framework, facilitation offices have been established in some informal neighborhoods with the aim of raising awareness and empowering residents, strengthening the relationship between official institutions and the local community, and improving social, economic, and physical indicators. However, the effectiveness of these offices in practice has been less evaluated structurally and empirically. The present study aimed to analyze the performance of facilitation offices in four neighborhoods of Tabriz metropolis, focusing on its relationship with empowerment, social participation, and physical, economic, and social outcomes.The research method is descriptive-analytical and applied. Data were collected in the field using a researcher-made questionnaire from 396 residents of neighborhoods with facilitation offices in 1401 and analyzed using structural equation modeling in SmartPLS software. The results showed that the performance of the offices had a direct effect on empowerment with a coefficient of 0.907 and on local participation with a coefficient of 0.636. Participation also played a significant mediating role in improving social indicators with a coefficient of 0.438, economic indicators with a coefficient of 0.294, and physical indicators with a coefficient of 0.266. Also, educational measures, transparent information, and interaction with local institutions were among the most important influential factors in the neighborhood development process. Accordingly, the research findings can be a basis for reviewing urban policies and creating participation-based institutions in the process of recreating and developing informal settlements

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Nowadays, informal settlements has become a common challenge in many of cities particularly in Metropolises .On one hand, it is a spatial manifestation of social and economical inequalities and injustice at the local, regional and national levels. On the other hand it is the result of urban planning deficiency, absence of citizenship and inattention to social and economical needs of low income groups in urban development plans. In this research, in order to develop main strategies for enabling and regularizing Tabriz informal settlements by zoning the district one’s settlements of Tabriz municipality and identifying the low income and vulnerable zones, the social, economical, physical and environmental indicators have been used. Moreover, the data was analyzed by combining GIS and AHP models and three zones were reached. The research shows the socio-economical and environmental separation between vulnerable zones and others. The CDS strategy has been confirmed because of paying attention to participatory and community-based approach for enabling and regularizing informal settlements of Tabriz district one