Unraveling the mechanisms of land-use lock-in in Iran’s urban planning system within the theoretical framework of path dependence

Esmailpoor, Najma; Salimi, Farzaneh

doi:10.22034/uep.2026.579023.1868

Unraveling the mechanisms of land-use lock-in in Iran’s urban planning system within the theoretical framework of path dependence

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Najma Esmailpoor ¹ ^¶

Farzaneh Salimi ²

¹ Associate Professor, Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

² Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

10.22034/uep.2026.579023.1868

Abstract

Urban development plans, as one of the principal pillars of Iran’s urban planning system, plan the future of cities for more than a decade through two key tools: “land-use maps” and “planning regulations.” Despite more than three decades of research demonstrating that the realization of planned land uses has remained partial and imbalanced, this planning pattern has persisted. This applied study employs a qualitative approach and a descriptive method to answer, in two steps, why this pattern has persisted and what mechanisms have stabilized it. In the first step, the realization rates of planned land uses and the causes of their non-realization were extracted from selected studies. These causes were subsequently categorized through qualitative content analysis within the theoretical framework of path dependence. The findings indicated substantial overlap among these causes regardless of time and location. While the causes identified in earlier periods were predominantly technical in nature, those identified in more recent periods can be categorized within technical, institutional, and discursive dimensions. In the second step, the phenomenon of land-use lock-in and path dependence in land-use planning in Iran was identified and explained through the origins of the system, learning, procedure, behavior, and motivation. Finally, two strategies were proposed to break the existing path: One, transferring the employer from the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development to municipalities, and the other, transferring the consequences of allocating land use on privately owned lands from individuals to the collective.

Keywords

Implementation barriers

land-use lock-in

land-use realization

path dependence

urban development plans

20.1001.1.28212118.1405.7.10.7.1

Subjects

Land Use

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