This thesis contributes to a detailed understanding of the urbanisation of Tehran, and offers a new perspective on its complexities and specificities. This perspective builds on the work of urban scholars who have critically questioned the Eurocentric understanding of cities and have moved beyond an artificial hierarchy of cities that pushes for ‘backward/underdeveloped’ cities to become like ‘advanced/developed’ cities, even if that is inappropriate to their specific material and cultural condition. The thesis considers the urbanisation of Tehran over the course of the whole 20th century and argues that urban change and development process of Tehran is a multi-scalar process and despite its particularities and differences, have been connected to wider global development processes. In doing so this research examines the historic trajectory of Tehran’s urbanisation and development through the lens of international development discourse (such as state-led industrialisation or long-term economic development planning and privatisation) and shows how the interconnection between Iranian city making practices and international development ideas have shaped Tehran urban spaces and social structure. Throughout the last century, many international perspectives on Iran diagnosed the country and its capital city as being ‘backward’, ‘Third World’, and ‘undeveloped’. Thus, the pressure to ‘catch up’ with developed and economically powerful nations has been crucial in the ways in which Iranian government regimes, political elites, experts, and citizens have dealt with the ‘problem of underdevelopment’. In this thesis, the discourse of development refers not only to how development is defined or described, but also to how it is measured and practiced. Since the beginning of the 20th century, shifts in the global political economy have caused new discourses, institutions, and actors of development to emerge – bringing important implications for the formulation of national development polices and urban planning practices in cities across the Global South, including Tehran. Therefore, this study seeks to reveal how the interplay between the global discourse on development and Iran’s development policies has resulted in particular urban plans and development projects for Tehran, whose outcomes have had long lasting effects on trajectories of urbanisation and urban transformation in Iran. This research provides a historic perspective which first interrogates the relationship between urbanisation and development discourses and problematizes their perceived positive relationship in studies of cities in the Global South. Then a series of theoretical debates on history of urbanisation in non-Western cities, and shifts in international development discourse and its implications for the formulation of national development polices and urban planning practices in cities across the global south are presented. These theoretical discussions have offered conceptual lenses and an analytical framework that have helped to create a multi-scalar approach which frames the history of Tehran’s urbanisation as an intertwined local and global process. It is particularly through the application of this analytical framework that this thesis provides a novel understanding of Tehran urban development and the role of urban planning and design. The multi-scalar analysis of Tehran’s urbanisation is divided into three major periods over the last century. The beginning and end of each of these chronological periods is defined by crucial socio-political changes in Iran, each of which were motivated by the ambition to develop a modern and independent Iran that resists Western hegemony. Moreover, each period has been structured around the key shifts in international development discourses, as well as key national development policies, urban plans and projects for Tehran, their political and economic purposes, and the experts and institutions involved in making them. The empirical analysis of each period unpacks the differing agendas for the construction of nation-statehood and traces the conflict and alliances between state and non-state actors and agencies in the process of negotiating and implementing national development policies and urban plans for Tehran. Finally, the role of local and Western urban planners and experts, and the ideas and principles that guided their work, were examined through tracing the institutionalisation of expertise and the plan-making processes. By revealing the pathway of Tehran’s urbanisation and its specific historical trajectory, this study finds that the development of Tehran as a capital city during the 20th century has been one of the key mechanisms with which the Iranian state has constructed itself, and fortified its role as a builder and engineer of new ‘modern’ urban spaces. In each of the different periods, extensive powers to organise the territory were in the hands of the state, which can be seen as a way of maintaining and extending its authority and legitimacy.
The case of Tehran’s urbanisation uncovers a mutual relationship between national development plans and urban change. The historical study of a series of key national development plans shows how Iranian ruling elites and chosen experts responded to dominant international development discourses and attempted to nurture a locally interpreted version of the ‘developed’ city. These efforts had direct implication for planning procedures and city making practices. As such, the case of Tehran deepens knowledge about the role of state and nation-building processes in shaping urban planning practices and urbanisation of southern cities, and also offers a counter-narrative to the common views in urban studies which suggest that large cities are bypassing their nation-states in driving economic growth and becoming strategic actors in the global economy.
Ultimately by interrogating state power in producing Tehran urbanism, we highlight the importance of and need for more research on the role of state (formal) and non-state (informal) actors in shaping Tehran’s urban development trajectory and the politics of city-making practices. This is particularly pertinent to the careful investigation of the role of revolutionary charitable foundations in planning development as these foundations cannot be defined simply as public or private sector. In more general terms, it is important to further research the role of the religious-political groups (as non-state actors) or any other developmental organisation with ideological orientations in shaping urban spaces and spatial practices of Middle Eastern cities. In fact, it will be impossible to do any planning reform without considering the crucial role these ideological groups and organisations play in socio-economic development of these cities. ... Read more

This report summarises the findings of the JPI Heritage Plus PICH Project’s nvestigation of the impact of the reform of urban planning on the historic built environment. The project team conducted twelve in-depth case studies in Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK covering three settings: the built heritage of historic urban cores, former industrial areas and the urban landscape. The findings are more fully reported in three comparative reports which compare findings for each setting in the four countries; in four national reports which look across the three settings in one country; and 12 case study reports. ... Read more

This paper traces the relationship between state development policies and planning Tehran’s urban development from 1945 until the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It shows how the geopolitical context of the Cold War, and the political agendas of multilateral and bilateral development agencies (i.e. the World Bank and the Ford Foundation), together with the specific circumstances of the national modernization of Iran, were decisive in shaping the Iranian planning administration and the emergence of a comprehensive master planning approach. Moreover, this study demonstrates the critical role of the Iranian technocratic elite and professional middle class in establishing planning institutions and advocating for a vision of progress and development. The focus here is on the formation of the ‘Plan Organization’ as the first modern planning institution in Iran, and the ways in which this institution played a key role in shaping Iranian expert culture and urban planning practices. By examining the links between national development policies and urban planning, this paper presents how comprehensive master planning emerged as the preferred model for the planning and development of Iranian cities. The focus here is on the design and implementation of Tehran’s 1968 Comprehensive Master Plan. ... Read more

Our present economy is high-energy and demand-intensive, demand met through the use of high energy yield fossil fuels. Energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are proposed as the solution and named the ‘twin pillars’ of sustainable energy policy. Increasing energy efficiencies are expected to reduce energy demand and fossil fuel use and allow renewables to close the ‘replacement gap’. However, the simple fact is that fossil fuel use is still rising to meet increasing global demand and even when demand is stabilised, the substantial energy efficiencies achieved are not delivering the expected reductions in energy demand. The net effect is that efficiencies are gained and renewable energy use is increasing, even though the replacement of fossils is not an immediately plausible possibility. This points to the under-theorised problems in the ‘efficiency and replacement’ formula. We argue the need to pay closer attention to the ‘systemicity’ of the problem and to the technical and practical systems involved in energy demand. There are a number of detailed reasons why the ‘efficiency and replacement’ equation has become problematic (‘globality’, energy yield, ‘rebound’ and ‘momentum’ effects) and we include a short review of these and relate them to our ‘systemicity’ argument. We argue there is a need for better thinking, but also for a new primary instrument to drastically reduce energy demand and fossil fuel use. Attention should be urgently shifted from gains in energy efficiency to substantial year-over-year reductions in demand. ... Read more