From Contemplation to Action

Document Type : Review

Author

Ph.D. Candidate in Urbanism, University of Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

In recent years Tehran Municipality has undertaken several projects that have changed the landscape of the city. A pathology of these projects shows that there are positive and negative issues in the four steps of definition of the project, planning and design, project implementation and project evaluation and review. In the first step, neglecting the priorities and needs of the city which have been mentioned in the strategic plan of Tehran is a problem. In the planning process of the projects, there are restrictions in the selection of consultants of planning and design and supervision on their studies. In some cases, social, economic, environmental and cultural appendices of the study are not independent and strong. In addition, the procedure of approval of projects has problems because of lack of certain criteria. In addition, poor public participation in the process of preparing and approving projects can be considered as weaknesses in Tehran. In the implementation step, the lack of financial transparency of the projects is has been criticized. Finally, the lack of evaluation indicators and a monitoring institute are some other questions in these projects. The review and analysis of the process can help to improve the quality of projects.

Keywords