Evaluating the role of urban planners in participatory urban planning: A conceptual model of success in Iran

Abstract

Nowadays, public participation is one of the most important factors to improve the feasibility, legitimacy, and quality of urban plans. In Iran, due to a lack of comprehensive understanding of the participation notion and its necessary socio-economic and political infrastructures, participatory decision-making has faced some serious challenges in both processes of preparing and implementing. This paper focuses on practical strategies for preparing participatory urban plans. Also, it seeks to answer this question: What is the role of planners to prepare a real participatory planning? It is presumed that a conceptual model for participatory planning can be fitted with Iran’s conditions using integrating the fundamental philosophic ideas of participatory planning such as theories of Paul Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas, given the fact that the present participatory planning in Iran needs a supportive theory which is adopted with power structures in Iranian urban planning system. In this regard, Habermas’ theory of communicative action and Foucault’s theory of power structures are reviewed by a comparative analysis method to present an integrated conceptual model for participatory planning in Iran’s condition. Finally, the CDS-making process in Anzali of Iran is analyzed to examine this claim in practice. The results yield that enabling urban planners to act as communication facilitators during planning can propel the participatory planning from theory to a real practice by integrating the positive aspects of communication and power.