Investigating the Dimensions of Cultural Sustainability and Compiling Conceptual Framework

Recently, the concept of cultural sustainability has been considered as one of the important aspects of sustainable urban development approach. The need to pay attention to the issue of culture in sustainable development, planning and dimensions of local development is emphasized for several reasons, including the necessity of cultural assessment, protection of local culture and realization of cultural diversity. Before, the field of culture was often defined very narrowly and therefore it was placed in an inappropriate relationship with the issue of development. The purpose of this research paper is to examine cultural sustainability as one of the dimensions of the sustainability approach. Therefore, examining its position in the form of sustainability frameworks and its impact on other dimensions of this approach is a suitable way for this analysis. In the following, to make the discussion clearer, the dimensions, measures and characteristics of this dimension of sustainability will be explained, so that the importance and necessity of paying attention to cultural sustainability in planning based on sustainable development will be discussed. The method of the present research to realize the purpose of the research is qualitative and based on content analysis. In the end, the comprehensive cultural plan of Tehran city is examined with a qualitative-inferential approach to examine the dimensions of this approach. Despite the fact that the three dimensions of culture have been considered to the macro documents, most of the emphasis is on values and less attention has been paid to art and cultural heritage. At the same time, in the review of Tehran's comprehensive cultural plan, it showed that less attention has been paid to indicators such as creativity, participation between people and officials, cultural democracy and tourism. This is while it is necessary to pay attention to all aspects of the issue of culture and take advantage of the macro-approach of sustainable development on the formation of a sustainable and distinctive cultural landscape of Tehran.