Development is destructive when all its costs override the benefits. Development is not always positive. If it is not done in a destructive manner, its harms outweigh its benefits. Development is a transformation in the current practice of land management aiming at enhancing productivity. Changing one aspect of land may damage other aspects that are not the subject of development but play a role in land construction. If measures are not taken to prevent such destruction, development will be destructive. To prevent destructive development a holistic approach needs to be adopted for the conceptualization of land. In this conceptualization, its subjective dimension, the observer's interpretation of the subject, is original and different from immaterial reality. Reality is outside and independent of the observer and may be material or immaterial. The physical form is an example of material reality and the event is an example of immaterial reality, both of which are of different natures and not dependent on the observer. Therefore, the subjective aspect of the land is different from its immaterial aspect which is constructed in the mind of the audience from external reality, material and immaterial. Holistic development is a form of intervention in land management and planning that takes into account the understanding of the observer as its historical citizen and inhabitant. Development that considers the local community to be circumvented, redundant, and dismissible is destructive. Natanz is a historical city from pre-Islamic times sitting at the intersection of the historical route of the South-North Silk Road and the local microclimate at the foot of the Karkas Mountain. Two factors contributing to life's survival and development at this point have led to the production of a specific understanding of the region that created the territory of Natanz as a small whole of a larger land. The ontology of Natanz rests upon two components: the road and the microclimate representing a place composed of geography and history and its residents.
In contrast, during the country's north-south highway development program, the Kashan-Isfahan highway was constructed. The benefits of this road, which was routed based on new technology and calculations associated with road economics, required not to enter Natanz but be extended directly to Isfahan. This was similar to the decision made by the Allies to change the route of the south-north railway in Iran by shortening the distance between the two ends rather than connecting to many cities along the way to speed up the transfer of their forces to the back of the Soviet front.
While the highway detour from Natanz seems to be destructive to its local community, it is beneficial to the road builders. However, strategic calculations, including macroeconomics, show that bypassing a historical city is not a maltreatment of its residents, but the deprivation of all road users and future generations from historical bonds with their land. Perception of homeland and patriotism develops through living and interacting together and constantly between the community and the environment in historical processes. This sense and perception of the users, whether residents of Natanz or highway passers-by, leads to the formation and continuation of a sense of identity playing a much more complex role than a common language in the stability of a society. The inhabitants of a large land cannot achieve a unified understanding of their homeland and their great land without having a common understanding of the smaller lands that make up their territory, which share a common geography (form) and history (event). This is one of the essential criteria for setting development plans that depend on macro concepts.
The strategic concept of development can only be achieved through a holistic approach and recognition of the user's fluid understanding of the realities of the land. The recognition of this component depends on the involvement of the local community and the historical inhabitants of the land and cannot be handed to others or be in the guardianship of the planner. The highway detour from Natanz weakened the city's foundation and encouraged residents to leave the city. This is an important example of understanding civilization and explaining how Iranians were deprived of settling in a land of a thousand climates. What it gained in return was a little less fuel consumption, which is even less than the maintenance costs of the road which is away from the city. This development was a no-win game situation.