Urban Planning
Mozaffar Sarrafi
Abstract
There are pervasive trends in Iran’s development which cause unsustainability and the socio-ecological unbalance. Many of these trends like the reduction of water per capita, environmental pollution, vast unemployment, ethnic cleavages, pauperization and marginal settlements, have spatial manifestation, ...
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There are pervasive trends in Iran’s development which cause unsustainability and the socio-ecological unbalance. Many of these trends like the reduction of water per capita, environmental pollution, vast unemployment, ethnic cleavages, pauperization and marginal settlements, have spatial manifestation, creating mal-development especially in urban areas. While the determinants of these situation cannot be reduced to spatial dimension, but in the framework of spatial planning, by relying on space as the seedbed of phenomena and their interactions, sustainability solutions can be made on its part. In this inquiry, to prevent redundancy of difficulties, being limited by the present knowledge and the consequent inability for radical solutions, the research method of problematization has been taken. Base on this method, a critical approach towards ontology and epistemology of the research subject is taken and the origins of problematic for the subject are elaborated and as a result, alternative actions by spatial planners has construed. In this vain, this article is a hypothetical effort at two abstract and concrete level for understanding the problematic of unsustainable production of space in Iran. In light of this, the approach of transformative spatial planning for Iran’s sustainability described as follows: Hindering the ongoing unsustainable production of space in Iran requires production of space on the foundation of another development pattern which is a synthesis of updated “Iran-Shahri” traditions (i.e., the philosophy and living experience of Iranian civilization persistence in history) with the global science and experience for sustainability. This should be on the basis of inclusive participation in community units across the country. In this process, due to social and ecological values in the environmental crisis, spatial institution building is essential for the partnership and agency of local communities to realize the transformation. It is important that spatial planners as agents of the great transformation towards another development, focus on placemaking as public space to instigate social interaction and community spirit. They should prioritize the socio-ecological logic to the economic and engineering logic at all spatial scales.
