June 2022
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129 Reads
Nowadays, planning is no longer considered merely a scientific and technical career nor a government responsibity. It rather functions as a bridge connecting the planners to institutional changes. In other words, the planning theory does not develop in a social, economic and political vacuum, but is formulated by individuals in social situations with the aim of clarifying the enviroment recommending appropriate procedures and processes. The purpose of this research was to identify the explanatory and normative capability of the Strategic Structural Plans theory in the context of institutionalism so as to enhance the capacity of its application in practice. For this purpose, the grounded theory was adopted as a research strategy within the framework of qualitative methodology. The data collection instruments involved desk study, interviews with experts, managers and specialists, collaborative observations on the environment. The research environment included macro and micro levels. At the macro level, the focus was on comprehensible conditions and components of Iranian spatial planning system, while the micro level served to examine on the local scale the urban planning and management through sample mining in Mashhad, Iran. As a result of this analysis, a total of 159 concepts, 44 categories and 9 major categories and 6 topics were recognized. Among the categories identified, institutionalism in the theory of Strategic Structural Plans was selected because of the frequent appearance in the data and its relation to other categories as axial category, where the paradigm model was outlined emphasizing on the causal and context condition, intervention, strategies and consequences. After a few decades, various research efforts were made in Iran proved that the selected inefficient strategy leads the urban development and promotion of environmental quality of all the involved factors in spearheading the urban development. Based on the substantial knowledge of the shortcomings and failures in the traditional planning model (comprehensive) in preparation of urban development plans on the one hand, and the new development needs and goals for the development of urbanization on the other hand, the Strategic Structural Plans were proposed as a corrective approach to guide the urban development in Iran. Having adopted this approach in urban development plans and assessed the first practical examples provided, it was revealed what was prepared and approved as Strategic Structural Plans (whether in the process of preparation, adoption and implementation or documents and outputs of the plan), were conflicting in terms of content and