بهاره بهرا

The topic of participation and social learning has garnered significant attention from urban planners today and plays a crucial role in the success of urban development projects. However, the role of children as a group of citizens has often been overlooked. This paper is based on a collaborative project between the steering and monitoring body of Tehran's urban development plans and an executive-research team. The project aimed to create opportunities for children's participation in the process of revising Tehran's comprehensive plan and to understand children's perspectives on their ideal Tehran. To this end, 100 students aged 10 to 11 participated, and group drawing techniques, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups were utilized for data collection. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the collected data. The research findings indicate that despite children's limited knowledge of urban concepts, their attention to the main dimensions of urban development is broad. This attention can be categorized within social, physical, environmental, managerial, and economic dimensions, as well as the components of a vibrant, inclusive city with social cohesion, a city that fosters a sense of belonging among citizens, is connected to nature, conserves natural resources, has economic efficiency, is smart and up-to-date, possesses a diverse image, offers diverse physical structures and housing, and exhibits physical sustainability. One of the achievements of this executive-research endeavor is the establishment of a foundation for children's participation in envisioning urban development plans by the relevant authority. Alongside creating these platforms, leveraging these components and prioritizing them in the process of revising Tehran's comprehensive plan can be a fundamental step towards strengthening participatory dimensions and realizing a desirable Tehran from the citizens' perspective.

Urban planning has evolved significantly in response to changing socio-economic and political realities, particularly as cities enter the 21st century. The multiplicity of societal interests and conflicting preferences has made conflict an integral part of urban planning processes. Planners, now more than ever, must grapple with these conflicts, as they can significantly impact the success or failure of urban policies and initiatives.
Although the discussion surrounding conflict in urban planning has existed for decades, it gained momentum in the 1970s and became especially prevalent in the 1980s with the rise of participatory planning approaches. As participatory models developed, urban theorists began paying more attention to conflicts as an inherent part of urban governance. However, the literature surrounding conflict in urban planning remains fragmented, with differing theoretical and practical approaches. This study aims to bridge this gap by systematically classifying conflicts based on the dominant theoretical, philosophical, and contextual frameworks present in planning theory.
Theoretical Framework: Understanding and managing conflict in urban planning requires a systematic typology that reflects the nature of these disputes in different contexts. Conflict typologies in urban planning research generally fall into two major categories: managerial and theoretical. The managerial approach focuses on decision-making processes, conflict resolution techniques, impact assessments, and institutional analysis. This approach aligns with organizational and management studies and seeks to devise strategies for managing conflicts effectively.
In contrast, the theoretical approach seeks to understand the root causes of conflicts, emphasizing the philosophical and epistemological underpinnings of urban planning. Theoretical perspectives examine conflicts through lenses such as power dynamics, the role of planning theory, and the influence of political institutions. These two broad approaches—the managerial and the theoretical—are frequently applied within a third situational context, which examines specific urban conflicts tied to space, land use, urban development, regeneration projects, and large-scale initiatives.

This research employs a systematic review methodology to analyze the evolution of conflict and conflict management in urban planning. The data collection involved a meta-analysis and qualitative content analysis of 139 English-language articles found in the Scopus database. Following the content analysis, an in-depth review of 46 additional sources helped trace the historical development of conflict theories and practices in urban planning.
The meta-analysis allowed the study to categorize the diverse approaches to conflict in urban planning into three main paradigms: positivist, post-positivist, and critical. Each of these paradigms brings a unique perspective to conflict management. For example, the positivist paradigm seeks guided consensus, while the post-positivist paradigm looks to resolve conflicts through consensus based on discourse ethics. The critical paradigm, on the other hand, challenges consensus-building as a form of hegemony, arguing that conflicts are constantly reproduced within the structures of urban governance.

The systematic review revealed that conflicts in urban planning can be broadly classified into three key approaches: managerial, theoretical, and situational. These approaches intersect in different ways, depending on the specific context in which the conflict arises. For example, situational conflicts often arise in areas related to spatial patterns, land use, ownership disputes, and urban regeneration projects. Managerial conflicts are tied to the processes of decision-making, institutional design, and conflict resolution strategies. Theoretical conflicts explore deeper issues, such as the role of power in planning and the underlying philosophies that guide urban policy.
In terms of paradigmatic shifts, the evolution of conflict management in urban planning has seen a movement from positivist approaches, which aimed to engineer consensus, to post-positivist approaches that emphasized the ethics of discourse and negotiation. More recently, critical theorists have argued that consensus itself is a mechanism for maintaining power imbalances and that conflicts are never fully resolved but continually reproduced within urban planning processes. This shift reflects a broader political turn in the field of urban planning, where conflicts are understood not just as problems to be solved but as symptoms of deeper systemic issues.

The evolution of conflict in urban planning reflects broader ideological and political shifts in the discipline. While early approaches sought to manage conflict through structured consensus-building, more recent perspectives recognize the inherent power dynamics at play in urban governance. Planners today must move beyond traditional regulatory roles and contribute to rethinking urban policy and transforming the symbolic and physical dimensions of urban spaces. However, the effectiveness of planners' roles in conflict management largely depends on the structural contexts and political cultures of the institutions within which they operate. Understanding and addressing these conflicts requires a multifaceted approach that considers both managerial and theoretical perspectives.

After the implementation of the contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces as the driver of economic growth and the long-term development of cities and regions, this idea has come under criticisms, especially due to its compliance with capitalist structures. In practice, the problem is that the attractiveness of life, work, and recreation in these spaces is purely accompanied by the consideration of the needs of creative layers of society with a mercantilist view and through sacrificing many primarily qualitative and secondarily contextual indices. Therefore, although these recently found arenas have received positive global attention, they face some challenges. One of these challenges is the low quality of places in the neighborhoods entailing contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces. Therefore, the purpose of this study was the attainment of qualitative factors of the placemaking mechanisms and urban policymaking of contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces as well as the development of the existing conceptual framework to respond to the criticisms in this regard. The research method was the qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the related documentary data and provision of an answer to the nature of the palcemaking factors using unlimited classical meta-analysis of Persian and English resources, including the scientific-research articles, theses and dissertations, books, and reports, and then coding and counting the frequency of the analysis units. At the end, the meta-analysis of the resources led to the identification of 21 conceptual labels for contemporary knowledge and innovation spaces in the form of four dimensions of characteristic, form, performance, and image. Consequently, it seems that consideration of the requirements of placemaking the related spaces – including accessibility, participation, investment, acceptance, social liveliness, dynamism in activities, and integration – can help increase the quality of knowledge and innovation spaces in the contemporary era.

Human presence in urban places means connection to collective existence and the space perceived by them is the result of a discourse between mind and society. Therefore, the quality of interactions resulting from the qualities of place proposed in the West, with the mental qualities in the Islamic approach, will not be effective in expressing the facts of human interactions with place. Therefore, the present study aims to achieve a model of place quality in the Iranian-Islamic city and in accordance with the Islamic school and thought seeks to answer the questions that what are the components affecting the meaning of place from the point of view of the Iranian-Islamic city? What are the necessary qualities to create an Iranian-Islamic urban place? What is the quality model of the place in the Iranian-Islamic city? In order to achieve the purpose of the research and answer the mentioned questions, qualitative methodology and content analysis strategy have been discussed in a descriptive-analytical process and content analysis of relevant resources in the field of Iranian-Islamic city. The model of place quality in the present study is based on the theory of phenomenal originality of meaning based on the idea that the place form is the most basic level of human interaction with the environment. Also, it has a completely tangible and physical nature and can be considered an object independent of human presence and knowledge. Human knowledge of the environment and the emergence of new concepts following the human presence in the environment, will provide the context for the emergence of the content of the place. For this reason, place and the meaning of place in the present study are considered to have two “subjective components” and “objective components”, which are inseparable in the content of place. According to the research results, the subjective component includes three components “perceptual”, “social” and “managerial” and the objective component has three components “function”, “shape” and “nature”. These components include a total of 52 qualities of places that make the model of quality of Iranian-Islamic city and can be considered in planning, design, management and decision-making and evaluation of the quality of Iranian-Islamic urban places.

Urban development through development of internal neighborhoods is an attempt to restore urban life to the deteriorated areas of cities. In order to facilitate this process, planning and implementation of flagship development has been considered as one of the policies used for urban neighborhood regeneration and provision of the requirements for the residents’ presence and concern for different dimensions of development.Regeneration of the historical and deteriorated areas in cities has been addressed in the recent literature on urban planning worldwide. Inefficiency is a major problem in historical and deteriorated urban areas, where automatic update and change is no longer possible.As in many other countries, the current process of extension of deteriorated urban areas in Iran indicates that problems will be complicated if no precautionary measures are taken, and no appropriate policies or operating plans are adopted.Implementation of flagship development has been considered as a solution.A main purpose of flagship development is to help achieve urban regeneration goals, an approach taken up as a comprehensive strategy for making positive changes in a place with signs of deterioration. This strategy is aimed at quality improvement, with integrated economic, social, and physical goals. Flagship development is applied in order to improve a place that is in the process of decaying and deteriorating, and its advocatesare agreed that an urban area will not achieve regeneration without such projects, since it causes a series of reactions that will lead to regeneration of the urban fabric. On the other hand, it is not the case that we hope to achieve development over a vast urban area simply by relying on this project, as many projects all around the world have failed to achieve their main purpose, i.e. to regenerate a decaying fabric. Theoretical Framework:  Evaluation is possible throughout the urban regeneration process, from the stage of problem identification to the implementation of projects and the review of the decision-making process. Through presentation of mobility and development indicators, therefore, the present study has developed into an appropriate, generalizable structure for assessment of the impact of flagship development and catalyst projects after implementation at the neighborhood scale. It evaluates the effects of an example of these projects in the Gowdal Mosalla neighborhood in the historical city of Yazd, Iran. The theoretical framework of the research involves three main parameters based on the overall literature and practical experience: the physical parameter, the residential parameter, and the activity parameter. The activity parameter includes the indicators of dependency burden, percentage of active population, percentage of commercial use, active commercial use, employment rate, and men’s rate of immigration. The physical parameter includes the indicators of access to infrastructure, access to parking space, population density, residential renovation, percentage of non-arid land, sustainable buildings, new buildings, percentage of administrative use. The residential parameter includes the indicators of percentage of indigenous population, percentage of tenancy, active housing, single-family housing, home access to primary schools, access to local parks, access to sports venues, youth population, number of students, level of education, and coefficient of residence.

 A research method based on the quantitative methodology, regression analysis was used in this study to analyze the effects of each indicator on each factor, and the matrix of impact assessment, known as Leopold Matrix, was used for evaluation after the implementation of the flagship development and the neighborhood regeneration. The final results were obtained after 25 evaluation indicators pertaining to urban regeneration and flagship development were extracted from the established overall literature and practical experience, and secondary data on 93 urban blocks of the Gowdal Mosalla neighborhood were analyzed in SPSS 21.

 The research findings demonstrate that the project performed at the Faculty of Arts and Architecture of Yazd has the greatest effects on the physical parameter, followed by the residential parameter and, eventually, the activity parameter at the scale of the Gowdal Mosalla neighborhood, and it can be approved as a positive flagship development through provision of modification options. The results indicate the closest relationships between the indicator of native quality and the residential status of the fabric, between the indicator of access to services and the status of the residential environment, and between the indicators of population at the age of activity and percentage of commercial land use and the activity and economic status of the neighborhood. Population density, administrative level, and the stability of buildings affect the mobility and physical development of the neighborhood.

 In future planning, it is necessary to consider indicators that focus on improvement of the residential parameter, especially through consolidation of the existing indigenous population and absorption of the young population. Moreover, the extracted theoretical framework will be effective for planning flagship developments and evaluating them in future practice and research.

The elements that make up the physical structure of cities are transformed over time. One of these important elements was the defensive wall of cities. Depending on the circumstances of each historical period, it has changed. In addition to the security role of this element, it is also very important to influence the expansion of the city. Yazd is one of the most valuable historical cities in the country, which Until the Timurid era, the defensive wall was one of the main factors in its development. Today, there are parts of the Mozaffarid and Timurid walls and the gates of these eras in the city; but despite evidence and written documents, there are still unanswered questions about the development of the fortification and the closure of the gates. Among these questions, what was the date of formation and development of the historic city of Yazd? What has been the location of the gates of the historic city of Yazd and the changes related to their location throughout history? The present article aims to reflect existing evidence, by studying library documents, surveying, and finally, analyzing the content of existing documents. Understanding changes in the shape of fortifications over time is important in gaining an understanding of the physical structure of historic cities. The achievement of the existing study indicates, the location of the Mehrijerd gate has changed from Kakuid to Mozaffarid era. Also, the initial location of the Mehrijerd gate, the gate of Bob Kia ,and the Kushkeno gate for archaeological speculation were obtained. The maps from the development of fortification during historic periods also indicate the significant effect of this artificial factor on the physical structure of the city and its developmental form.

Regeneration of historical and deteriorated areas of cities has been noted in recent urban planning literature worldwide. Inefficiency is a main problem in deteriorated urban areas where the possibility of updating and spontaneous changing has disappeared. Similar to many other countries, current process of extension of urban deteriorated area in Iran indicates that problems will be complicated, if we did not apply any precautionary measures, suitable policies, planning and ation plans. In this regard, one solution has been implementation of flagship developments. One of the main objectives of flagship developments is to achieve urban regeneration goals; an approach that is used as a comprehensive strategy for applying some positive changes in one place that have signs of deterioration. It considers quality improvement, with integrated goals of economic, social and physical topics. This strategy is used in order to improve a place that is in the process of decaying and deteriorating, but advocators of flagship development have unanimity in this subject, which one zone of urban wont achieve regeneration without such projects; Because of, flagship developments caused a series of reactions that will be finished to regeneration of urban fabric. On the other hand, it is not true that we hope to achieve development in the vast area of urban just by relying on this project because many projects in all around the world could not achieve their main goal that was regenerating a decaying fabric. Historical fabric of Yazd city is one of the important historical urban fabrics of Iran that have high historical value but in recent years, is encountered with decaying process. Accordingly, the present article is to collect indicators of urban mobility and development by studying the theoretical literature and reviewing practical experiences, to study the role of flagship developments in historic fabric of Yazd city. For having a comprehensive evaluation, had used 27 objective indicators in three branches: residential, activity and physical parameters, in the nine neighborhoods of the central districts of Yazd city. The research method is a combination of analytical techniques; On the one hand the world's leading texts on the urban regeneration and flagship development have studied. On the other hand the secondary data analysis of 850 city blocks in the statistical analysis software (SPSS 21) and geographic information systems (Arc GIS) was conducted. The findings of this study show that the main factors of evaluating the role of flagship development and such projects in regenerating the inner cities fabric, includes eight factors. These factors include: residential status, the physical condition of housing and residential environment, the activity situation, the economic situation, physical renewal, construction's mobility, governmental investment and general situation of neighborhood's fabric. Then by using TOPSIS as a multi-criteria decision making technique (MCDM) the results show that in the historic fabric of the city of Yazd, Gonbadesabz neighborhood has the best situation and Zoroastrians neighborhood has the most chaotic situation in relation to the combined indicators of mobility and development.