Analysis the challenges of transition to new approach in the process of preparing Iran's urban development plans based on the experience of the first phase of Isfahan comprehensive plan

The ineffectiveness of urban comprehensive plans in facing the complex issues of Iran's urban planning system, finally caused a change in the approach of compiling these plans from a purely physical approach to a spatial-strategic approach as a new approach in the conditions of urban planning in Iran, and the preparation of urban development plans with this approach was approved by the Iran Supreme Council of Urban Planning and Architecture in the summer of 1400 AH. But, the important point in this way is to pay attention to providing the necessary capacities to prepare plans with this approach. Therefore, the main goal of the current research is to analyze the challenges of using this approach with an emphasis on the challenges of its participatory aspect, which was done based on the pathology of obstacles to the participation of stakeholders in the experience of Isfahan Comprehensive Plan as the first plan prepared with this approach. The research method is qualitative and based on it, the data collection method includes in-depth semi-structured interviews and refer to documents, and the qualitative content analysis method was used in the data analysis. The findings of the research showed that participation in the preparing Isfahan Plan by all three stakeholders, including the public sector, civil society and planners, has faced many challenges and these challenges consist of three main categories of institutional environment, structural factors, and content and procedural characteristics of the manuscript of the new approach, And it seems that until the participation is not institutionalized in the planning context of Iran and the attitude of the stakeholders towards participatory planning is not changed the transition to the new approach will not be practical and this change of attitude will remain only at the level of changing the discourse