Meta-analysis of the obstacles to the manifestation of Urban regeneration projects in Iran

ABSTRACT
With the expansion of inefficient tissues, "Urban regeneration" has been objectified as a solution for developing cities in different physical, social and economic dimensions. Despite the development of the guidelines for urban regeneration projects, these projects in Iran still have challenges in the stage of realization and implementation. This article aims to identify the "challenges and causes of non-realization of urban regeneration projects in Iran" and analyse the research conducted in this field with a qualitative approach. For this purpose, a meta-analysis of 23 articles in the field of problems of urban regeneration projects in Iran was carried out. The challenges raised in the AtlasTI software were extracted with the help of open and axial coding. In the following, 100 codes were determined in the form of 10 groups or general categories. In the end, the obstacles to the realization of urban regeneration projects in Iran were given. According to the obtained results, the weak presence of non-governmental organizations, the problems of preparing plans, institutional and management problems, and the weakness of participation are the four most important and frequent challenges in the research related to the realization of urban regeneration projects in Iran
Extended Abstract
Introduction
The trend of urban population growth and the expansion of inefficient urban fabrics along with the increasing immigrant population to the cities makes the planners think of filling the existing urban fabrics with excessive density and land use change, instead of the city horizontal development with regard to the urban sustainable development prism. Poor housing, low per capita services, lack of necessary infrastructure, low quality of life, economic stagnation and functional inefficiency, unorganized physical-spatial structure, high vulnerability to earthquakes, loss of social status, and various social problems exemplify the typical challenges of such deteriorated areas. Deterioration of the urban fabric has prompted the emergence of various urban development policies among which regeneration as an overarching approach characterized by its economic, social, environmental, physical, ecological dimensions and components including quality of life, justice, revitalization and participation. This concept, as an urban development policy, has been defined and applied in the vulnerable and deteriorated areas of cities in recent years. Started from physical redevelopment in the Second World War and passing through policies concentrated on social and economic welfare, urban regeneration policies moved towards the participation of local residents and the creation of sustainable places in recent decades. However, taking into consideration the manifestation challenges of urban development plans, in the existing literature, urban regeneration challenges have been less comprehensively investigated. This paper aims to identify the "challenges and causes of lack of urban regeneration plans manifestation in Iran" based on the review and analysis of the research conducted in this field with a qualitative approach in response to this question: "What are the challenges and obstacles to the manifestation of urban regeneration projects in Iran?”
 
Methodology
This research aims to identify "challenges and obstacles to the manifestation of urban regeneration projects in Iran" through a meta-analysis of the research conducted in this field. Conducting a systematic search in Magiran, comprehensive humanities portal, and Google Scholar databases using the Boolean logic search used the keyword (challenges) AND key phrases (‘manifestation of plans’ AND ‘urban regeneration in Iran’) resulted in more than 70 Persian papers, 2 English papers, and 2 English theses. The reviewed studies included research and review papers, case study research, and the special issue of urban regeneration policy of Haft Shahr Journal. The geographical scope of the investigated studies covers the historical contexts of Iran, and metropolises such as Tehran, Tabriz, Shiraz, and Isfahan. Reviewing the abstracts, 23 studies were selected among which the research focusing on the different types of regeneration, and evaluation of urban regeneration indicators were excluded from the research process. To conduct meta-analysis after a comprehensive review of each study, open and focused coding of challenges was done through Atlas.ti software (version 8), and the obstacles to the manifestation of the plans were extracted. Coding process continued until the saturation was reached. Finally, the 115 codes obtained was reduced to 100 through integrating similar codes. Then, all the codes were categorized into 10 categories, and a comprehensive model of "challenges of manifestation of urban regeneration projects in Iran" was presented.
 
Results and discussion
Based on the conducted review, the recognized problems with emphasis on the different aspects of urban regeneration projects are: 1) Weak presence of non-governmental organizations (18 codes); 2) Problems of preparing plans (17 codes); 3) Institutional and managerial problems (14 codes); 4) Weakness of participation (13 codes); 5) Duration and financial problems of urban regeneration plans (10 codes); 6) Problems of urban regeneration plans process (8 codes); 7) loss of identity of fabrics in the preparation of the plan (6 codes); 8) Lack of context-oriented approach (7 codes); 9) inefficient evaluation of plans (4 codes); 10) lack of social and specialized training for citizens and officials (3 codes). The lack of endogenous theory and insufficient knowledge of the environment and residents obstacle the manifestation of urban regeneration plans. Despite pretending the use of non-governmental organizations, the relevant law weaknesses, and the lack of belief in the effectiveness of it has led to disregard of the participation of non-governmental organizations in practice in the process of preparing and implementing development plans resulting in an inadequate context for manifestation of urban regeneration plans. In addition, the government supervision on NGO’s in the way of achieving independence has also caused limitations for their interplay.
In terms of the issues in the preparation of plans, more emphasis on the physical and economic dimensions and the purely physical view, and the lack of attention to the social and cultural consequences, along with the loss of the community identity, are the factors of the failure of the plans to achieve the expected results. The lack of coordination between programs and multiple decision-makers led to the institutional confrontation instead of interaction. In this regard, the necessity of an integrated and comprehensive approach to urban regeneration has been acknowledged in the reviewed studies. NGO’s can play an effective role in communicating with citizens, educating citizens and informing them. It is also necessary to have the participation of the private sector and other organizations involved in the field of urban development in addition to public participation in all steps of preparation, implementation and occupation of projects and development plans. In the absence of a context-oriented approach in the preparation and implementation of urban regeneration plans in Iran with blind imitation of western models and the existence of limited urban infrastructure, following consequences are inevitable: uncertainty in terms of time, cost and site preparation before the implementation of the plan; lack of definition of urban regeneration plans in the different scales, neighborhood, region and city; and the uncertainty of the relationship between these plans and other urban development plans. As such in the current inadequate conditions driving the process of preparing plans, the possibility of implementing new policies and plans, is low and the implemented plans like many other urban development plans in Iran, are inefficient in the absence of the post occupancy evaluation.
 
Conclusion
Based on the results, four priority challenges in the manifestation of urban regeneration plans in Iran include; the weak presence of non-governmental organizations, the problems of preparing plans, institutional and managerial issues, and the weakness of participation. "The weak presence of non-governmental organizations" has been mentioned as the first challenge in most reviewed studies (Ahmadifar et al., 2014). Regarding the "participation of citizens" even though in the set of laws and regulations of sustainable urban regeneration, promotion of citizenship culture, participation, and cooperation of local institutions are highlighted, the residents are not welcomed in practice. On the other hand, the lack of people's participation in the preparation and implementation of plans has made any urban regeneration actions fail or achieve to its partial goals. In this regard, the results of the previous comparative comparisons have shown that the lack of laws and regulations supporting participation in various fields is of the key factors (Nourian and Ariana, 2011, Shafie Dastjerdi and Sadeghi, 2016). The problems of preparing plans, institutional and managerial issues, ranked as the third and fourth issues in this study, have been emphasized in previous studies as well (Kalantari Khalil Abad et al., Pakro and Sattarzadeh, 2014, Izadi et al., 2019). Therefore, prioritizing the challenges raised by experts and determining operational strategies to solve them are issues that can be addressed in future studies.
 
Keywords
Urban regeneration plans, manifestation, meta-analysis
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
All of the authors approved the content of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.