The Obstacles against the Success of Suggested Functions in Urban Development Projects in Iran

Land use planning in Iran has been based on traditional detailed, comprehensive plans over the last half a century. A variety of studies and evaluations on these plans have indicated a general failure and called for reforms in terms of their content and methods. Present paper aims to find and investigate the causes of the failure to implement proposed urban land use plans with the hope that the results may be usefully direct relevant reforms.
The causes of the failure have indicated in previous studies but these are closely dependent on the professional experience of the researchers and none of them were methodologically systematic. Thus, this gap is addressed in the present paper. Unlike the previous body of research, the quantitative methodology adopted here is known as ‘grounded theory’. Required data was derived from depth interviews. Snowball sampling was employed, including 14 highly informed members from among city officials, planning counselors, professors.
Thus taking the problem as a phenomenon and using grounded theory can be useful in exploration of different causes and conditions. Grounded theory emphasizes direct engagement with real life situations in order to discover what is really going on and believes in the complexity of phenomena and human activities and those humans adopt activism in face of challenges. This theory is sensitive to dynamic, unfolding nature of events and seeks to know the corresponding relations between conditions (structure), action (process) and consequences. For this dilemma as a complex, multidimensional phenomenon, employing grounded theory is more rewarding than other research methods. According to this theory, the main causes of failures in land use plans are recognized along with their relative importance.
Results revealed that some 11 different factors have been related to fail attempts directly, conveniently called causal conditions. The most important were the lack of realism and logical thinking in making plans and proposals (26.56%), unsystematic erroneous decisions and actions (14.06%), negative financial balances in municipalities and illegal profits earned from side stepping the proposed plans (14.06). Any reform in status quo must take into account these obstacles.
In order to clarify these themes divided into two parts. The first contains the problems related to urban plans procedure and content and the second related to problems of urbanization system and structure in Iran. The results indicate that totally 192 codes generate from interviews. Of this number, 69 codes (35.93%) related to plans and 123 codes (64.06%) related to system. Then, reformation and making changes in method and content of planning only couldn’t be enough.
In addition to above conditions, contextual conditions and sustain conditions are also revealed to be effective in this issue. Contextual conditions include major factors that lie outside the reach of urban administrative system. Therefore, urban administrative system may adopt two strategies: repair strategy or conformity strategy. The factors that help the existing situation remain unchanged are called sustain conditions and must be addressed seriously, otherwise, the present problems may continue and make us cope with consequences of inaction.