A Grounded Theory Approach to the Application of Structural-Strategic Plans in Iran’s Urban Planning Syste

Nowadays, planning is no more is considered as a scientific and technical profession or a governmental and state duty rather it is envisioned as a bridge connecting the planners to the institutional changes. In other words, the planning theory is not formed within social, economic and/or political considerations rather it is configured by the individuals in social situations with the objective of elaborating the current status and prescribing of more appropriate procedures and processes. The present study has been conducted with the objective of introducing the elaborative and prescriptive power of the structural-strategic programs on the institutionalism grounds for the enhancement of the capacity of their application in Iran’s urban planning system. To do so, grounded theory has been utilized as the study strategy. The data collection instruments of the present study are documentary and library research, interviews with the experts, managers and specialists and participatory observation in the study environment; the instruments are composed of two micro- and macro-levels. In the latter level, Iran’s urban planning system’s conditions and indicators are taken into account with a pervasive comprehensiveness; in the former level, the sample evaluation is carried out with the objective of investigating the local scales of urban planning and management in the development and civil planning of the city of Mashhad. Following these analyses, 159 concepts and 44 topics and 9 meta-topics were identified in relation to Iran’s urban planning system and structural-strategic planning under six titles using a coding method. Amongst the identified topics, institutionalism was selected in the structural-strategic plans as the pivotal issue and the paradigmatic model was delineated with an emphasis on the causal, background and intervening conditions and strategies and outcomes. Based on this analytical model, the structural-strategic planning provides the prerequisites for the development of the scales and various levels as the discourse framework and in respect to the social mobilization.