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.