This book explores the tenacity of Iran’s informal settlements against the backdrop of the World Bank’s USD 80 million loan for physical upgrading. Arefi seeks to identify and unravel the distinctive models, policies, processes, and outcomes associated with it, and explains why—despite obvious challenges—informal settlements remain popular in Iran, and also how understanding them in a broader theoretical context helps rectify existing redevelopment policies in order to develop more effective ones.

Who shapes our cities? In an age of increasing urban pluralism, globalization and immigration, decreasing public budgets, and an ongoing crisis of authority among designers and planners, the urban environment is shaped by a number of non-traditional stakeholders. The book surveys the kaleidoscope of views on the agency of urbanism, providing an overview of the various scholarly debates and territories that pertain to bottom-up efforts such as everyday urbanism, DIY urbanism, guerilla urbanism, tactical urbanism, and lean urbanism. Uniquely, this books seeks connections between the various movements by curating a range of views on the past, present, and future of bottom-up urbanism. The contributors also connect the recent trend of bottom-up efforts in the West with urban informality in the Global South, drawing parallels and finding contrast between social and institutional structures across the globe. The book appeals to urbanists in the widest sense of the word: those who shape, study, and improve our urban spaces.

CHAPTER FIVE. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION -- 5.1. Introduction -- 5.2. Structure of Urban Planning and Management in Iran -- 5.3. Position and Role of City Councils, Community (local) Councils and NGOs in Urban Planning and Management in Iran -- 5.3.1. Position and Role of City Councils in Urban Planning and Management -- 5.3.1.1. Authorities and Functions -- 5.3.1.2. Links and Communication -- 5.3.1.3. Financial Dependency -- 5.3.1.4. Ongoing Activities -- 5.3.2. Position and Role of Community (local) Councils in Urban Planning and Management -- 5.3.3. Position and Role of Non-governmental Organizations in Urban Planning and Management -- 5.3.3.1. Informal and formal NGOs -- 5.3.3.2. Problems and Obstacles -- 5.3.3.3. Potentials and capacities -- 5.3.3.4. NGOs Concerned with Saadi Community -- 5.4. Current and Possible levels of Citizen Participation in Iran -- 5.4.1. Current Levels of Citizen Participation -- 5.4.2. Possible Levels of Citizen Participation -- 5.5. Affecting Factors on Citizen Participation in Iran -- 5.5.1. Affecting Factors on Citizen Participation in Iranian Cities -- 5.5.1.1. Mediatory variables -- 5.5.1.2. Independent Variables -- 5.5.2. Affecting Factors on Citizen Participation in Saadi Community (As an Informal Settlement) -- 5.5.2.1. Mediatory Variables -- 5.5.2.2. Independent Variables -- 5.6. Summary -- References -- ABSTRACT -- ZUSAMMENFASSUNG -- Back Cover

During recent years, the topic of participation has increasingly been gaining importance in Iran – in the scientific field, in practice and rhetoric. However, in current scientific literature – and especially in English literature – there is little knowledge on the conditions, legal background, perceptions, experiences and processes of citizens’ participation in Iran. This book aims to shed light on the paradoxical question of participation in Iran: it is old and new, dysfunctioning and functioning, disappointing and promising. This slippery status of participation convinces scholars to suggest contradictory interpretations and understandings about the existence, functionality, and potentiality of this concept. The book therefore shows the different perspectives, interpretations, historical developments and case studies of participation in Iran, thus giving the reader a kaleidoscope view on the question of participation in Iran.

Urban Resettlements in the Global South provides new perspectives on resettlement through an urban studies lens. To date, resettlement has been theorised through development studies and refugee studies, but urban resettlement is also a major dimension of urban development in the Global South and may help to rethink contemporary urban dynamics between spectacular new town developments and rising incidences of eviction and displacement. Conceptualising resettlement as a binding notion between production/regeneration and destruction/demolition of urban space helps to illuminate interdependencies and to underline significant ambiguities within affected people’s perspectives towards resettlement projects. This volume will offer an interesting selection of ten different case studies with rich empirical data from Latin America, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia, focused on each stage of resettlement (before, during, after relocation) through different timescales. By offering a frame for analysing and rethinking resettlement within urban studies, it will support any scholar or expert dealing with resettlement, displacement, and housing in an urban context, seeking to improve housing and planning policies in and for the city.

This book brings together a series of theory and practice essays on risk management and adaptation in urban contexts within a resilient and multidimensional perspective. The book proposes a transversal approach with regard to the role of spatial planning in promoting and fostering risk management as well as institutions’ challenges for governing risk, particularly in relation to new forms of multi-level governance that may include stakeholders and citizen engagement. The different contributions focus on approaches, policies, and practices able to contrast risks in urban systems generating social inclusion, equity and participation through bottom-up governance forms and co-evolution principles. Case studies focus on lessons learned, as well as the potential and means for their replication and upscaling, also through capacity building and knowledge transfer. Among many other topics, the book explores difficulties encountered in, and creative solutions found, community and local experiences and capacities, organizational processes and integrative institutional, technical approaches to risk issue in cities.

This edited volume discuses urban transport issues, policies, and initiatives in twelve of the world’s major emerging economies – Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam - countries with large populations that have recently experienced large changes in urban structure, motorization and all the associated social, economic, and environmental impacts in positive and negative senses. Contributions on each of these twelve countries focus on one or more major cities per country. This book aims to fill a gap in the transport literature that is crucial to understanding the needs of a large portion of the world’s urban population, especially in view of the southward shift in economic power. Readers will develop a better understanding of urban transport problems and policies in nations where development levels are below those of richer countries (mainly in the northern hemisphere) but where the rate of economic growth is often increasing at a faster rate than the wealthiest nations.