Can Tehran Become a Truly Sustainable City? Unlocking the Potential of Community-Based Planning

This text discusses the challenges of achieving sustainable urban development through community-based planning, particularly in megacities like Tehran.  It emphasizes the importance of genuine community participation and capacity building as crucial for sustainable urban development. The research highlights that successful capacity building requires certain prerequisites, including a shift in public attitudes, fostering constructive interactions, identifying capable local actors, and adopting a process-oriented approach to planning and participation.  However, several obstacles often hinder capacity building, such as government overreach, lack of efficient organizational structures, legal barriers, conflicts of interest, potential for corruption, top-down institutionalization, lack of localization, inadequate interaction networks, low social capital, and a fading neighborhood identity.

The study specifically examines Tehran, revealing that despite efforts to establish social structures like neighborhood councils and committees, capacity building for neighborhood-based planning has been unsuccessful due to an inability to change public attitudes and the prevailing economic conditions.  The proposed intervention framework suggests addressing legal obstacles and conflicts of interest at the national level, promoting decentralized decision-making in local affairs, and reforming regulations to define the scope of local authorities.  Furthermore, it emphasizes capacity building at the individual level to empower citizens as planners and implementers at the neighborhood level, alongside addressing their economic and social needs.  Finally, it calls for capacity building within local government to facilitate participatory management and planning approaches.  The study concludes that reforming the executive bodies of urban management organizations and shifting citizen attitudes are crucial for successful neighborhood-based planning in Tehran.

**Key Recommendations:**

* **National Level:**
    * Resolve legal obstacles and conflicts of interest between national and local governments.
    * Clearly define the role of local authorities in national law.

* **Policy Level:**
    * Promote decentralized decision-making in local affairs.
    * Reform regulations to define the scope of local authorities' decision-making and activities.

* **Individual Level:**
    * Empower citizens as planners and implementers at the neighborhood level.
    * Invest in long-term programs to shift attitudes towards active participation.
    * Address economic and social needs to enable higher-level engagement.

* **Local Government Level:**
    * Foster acceptance of participatory management and planning approaches.
    * Reform and rebuild the executive bodies of urban management organizations.

* **Overall:**
    * Foster collaboration and coordination between NGOs, government institutions, and citizen actors.
    * Recognize and address the impact of economic crises and social insecurity on citizen engagement.
    * Acknowledge and accept the diversity of local contexts and approaches to capacity building.

By addressing these recommendations, the study suggests that cities can move closer to achieving truly sustainable and community-driven urban development.