نظریه برنامه ریزی شهری

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.

Deliberation of generated knowledge about informal settlements leads to the identification of two critical theoretical gaps. firstly, although contextualism has entered into urban planning discussions, its place as an independent theoretical framework for explaining the development process of informal settlements seems vacant. Secondly, the theoretical literature of urbanism lacks a comprehensive framework obtained by contextual analysis of the physical development pattern of these settlements.

The study aims to analyze the context to explain the physical development of informal settlements using a contextualism perspective. In other words, this study attempts to formulate a coherent theoretical framework of the informal settlement’s physical development planning principles in a contextual interpretation.

The study used the meta-synthesis method with Sandlosky and Barros seven-step model. Firstly, 422 articles were obtained through a systematic search. Finally, 27 articles were selected for inclusion through the screening process using rayyan.ai. Then the selected papers were inductively coded using MAXQDA 2020 based on the research questions, and the next steps were devoted to analyzing and synthesizing the concepts extracted.

The extraction process led to the identification of 1092 codes. The combination process of the codes resulted in the designation of one lateral category; articles’ descriptive information, and five main categories; macro context, local context, the function of context, the response to the context, and interventionist factors. The next part of the outcomes were four sorts of principles related to the physical development of informal settlements includes; process, product, management, and regulations.

Firstly, informal settlements are a context-based phenomenon consequently, to understand the logic governing them, it is necessary to analyze the context at macro and local scales. Secondly, the development principles of informal settlements are evolving and upgrading cyclically, and continuously. Therefore, these settlements have the potential dynamics necessary to adapt incrementally to the changing needs and conditions and operate resilient, affordable, and sustainable.

Tehran’s urban development plans are based on the understanding of Tehran, which represents the evolution of knowledge and experience of urban planning as well as the structure of the urban decision-making system during the 40-year period of urban planning in Tehran between 1967 to 2007. The reason for such a claim is that understanding of Tehran in these plans is the same as that of the plan's developers and the people involved in reviewing and approving it. Therefore, it is traceable and not an illusion. If we believe that the first determining factor in how to deal with a phenomenon is how to understand it, there is a significant gap in the theoretical and experimental literature of urban planning in Tehran over the last 40 years, which the current study aims to address and answer. Grasping and analyzing such understanding, including pre-conceptions and the mechanism of understanding formation, will play an important role in the birth of a kind of critical thinking to urban planning in Tehran. In this research, by content analyzing of Tehran urban development plans (1967, 1991 and 2007) through a coding process; the components of "Understanding of Tehran" are extracted and then, by analyzing the relations between them, a narrative of these understandings is presented. In order to analyze the compatibility and validity of the research, the second researcher has been employed in the research process. The evolution of understanding of Tehran within its urban development plans has shown that these understandings are entirely dependent on the authors, time and context, and despite extensive advances in planning theory over the last fifty years, there hasn’t been considerable change in how Tehran is understood. Therefore, it is still understood as determined, as an object, controllable and reduced. The findings, although verifying and agreeing with Gadamer's hermeneutic philosophy, remind us that no phenomenon, including the city, has a single essence, and its meaning is as many interpretations as possible. As a result, any encounter with the phenomena of the city that is based on a single understanding of it is considered a form of reductionism. Consequently, any phenomenon's understanding evolves with time and will not remain constant. Of course, given that the producers of the three Tehran development plans' understanding were primarily focused on the visible layer of needs and desires, what has changed in their understanding is primarily related to the superficial issues rather than the roots and foundations; and as a result, their basic understandings of Tehran have not changed over time significantly. In terms of approach and method, this research has a significant contribution, and it may be used not only to examine the planning process in other cities, but also for other ill-conceived concepts of urban planning. In other words, this study opens a new chapter in the evaluation of urban development plans and, more broadly, the evaluation of the application of urban planning concepts, which can bring numerous issues from urban planners' collective subconscious into their sphere of consciousness.