A Review of the Comprehensive Planning Process of Rasht City with a Comparative Approach (Triple Comprehensive City Plans)

Five decades have passed since the preparation and implementation of the so-called comprehensive urban development plans in Iran and despite the fact that some positive results have been achieved, the plans have not reached an optimal level as intended by experts and people. This paper first briefly explains the characteristics of the comprehensive plan based on descriptive-analytical method consistent with the data obtained and processed next. Then, it attempts to review the urban development plans of Rasht focusing on its second comprehensive plan and assess the extent of realization of its objectives and predictions concerning the implemented plans. Specifically, the results of the implementation of the second comprehensive plan of Rasht show that there have been gross mistakes in its projections and targets. Among them, the estimated population of Rasht in the comprehensive plan and its detailed plan was inaccurate with 9.1% (46944 people) and 6.02% (33654 people) of the estimated surplus, respectively. In addition, as for the ​​expansion limits and communication network of the city, the second comprehensive and detailed plan of Rasht had 13% and 22.6% of inaccuracies, respectively (estimate surplus). Regarding the area and per capita amount of urban utilities, about 20.28% of the area of ​​use and 24.76% of per capita amounts, respectively, at the end of the plan implementation are surpluses of what was predicted; in other words, the forecast of the second comprehensive and detailed plan of Rasht in this area has been in short supply. It is finally concluded that the second comprehensive plan of Rasht, such as the comprehensive plans of other cities, has some shortcomings such as non-flexibility, extensive service descriptions, and emphasis on the framework that is mainly due to the weakness of the nature of the comprehensive plan model.