URBAN DEVELOPMENT AS A DIALECTIC BETWEEN TRANSPORT SYSTEM AND LAND-USE: THE CASE OF TEHRAN’S PARCEL STRATEGIES
Authors:   University of Geneva, HEDJAZI A. , HASHEMI BEHRAMANI A. , ALIYEV T. 
Published: February 2023

The rapid population growth and urban transformation occurring in cities across the world is leaving its imprint across distinct geographic, socio-political and cultural local variations. Within diversity of situation and a complex context urbanism scholar recognize the common denominator; a process of urbanization without form, limits and consideration for the natural environment in cities. Iran’s capital city; Tehran is not an exception being impacted by the rapid urbanization process within the last 3 decades that has been exacerbating existing dynamics of sprawl and urban fragmentation. The metropolis of 9million has known rapid development in a relatively short period of time. Major areas of the city are developed according to different land subdivision models for construction of villas and residential and commercial buildings based on plans and measure if early XXth century. The city of Tehran was developed on latter model until the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1987. To face the surge of population as a result of internal migration waves, Tehran’s municipality authorized new higher constructions. The densification strategies, which were carefully conceptualized by city authorities, led in practice to the reduction of quality of life in transformed spaces. Indeed, this latest trend of urbanization in the capital unfolded with no adaptation on the urban transport policy side still predominately driven by the use of individual cars resulting in increasing congestion and air pollution. Meanwhile to face the increasing demand for parking space, urban designers and architects advocated for the easy and unsustainable practice of retrofitting vacant land and greenspaces into parking spaces. The resulting concretization of the land engulfed greenspace into grey spaces with the immediate result of increasing temperature and sealing-off the soil in many areas, expansion of heat islands and generally speaking disrupting natural dynamics including harvesting rain water run offs across the city in favor of a land use logic based on densification and expansion of the built areas. Based on this context this article aims to describe some of the new devised strategies such as Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) and redesign of Parcel Plans, to better decipher new strategies and tools to transform and retrofit existing urban interstices, with limited environmental and social value, into higher quality urban areas. As such the right compromise between mobility needs of growing population and land use through the generalization of Transit Oriented Development model can participate in improving urban life through connecting transport networks with the built environment while reducing the use of individual cars. Further, the use of both models by scaling down mobility and land use to neighborhood and street level also enables the municipality to develop greater resilience of metropolitan area towards future shocks such as pandemics while mitigating negative environmental externalities at smaller yet more implementable scale of parcels, streets and neighborhoods.