Explaining Power Mechanism in the Preparation and Implementation of Urban Development Plans; The University of Tehran Development Plan as a Case Study

Abstract

Today, with the spread of urbanization, we witness more and more the space of competitive logic and development in the world around us. In other words, it can be said that what we deal with in the form of various plans and programs is considered representative of the mentioned logic. As an example of these development plans and programs, this article uses the qualitative grounded theory method. It describes the conflict space formed around the University of Tehran's development plan. The research findings show that in this field, through an intertwining of academic rationality and power networks, the knowledge concerned with the public good is produced and creates the issue necessary here to develop a green, entrepreneurial, and Entrepreneur university. At the same time, this particular knowledge generated by power relations is legitimized. This is where the logic of development is reproduced in a specific spatial form. One of the commonalities of this spatiality in the general concept of development logic is the types of dispossession and gentrification. This expropriation, along with all the exercise of power, leads to resistance from the residents of the Vesal neighborhood. Finally, the set of these multiple forces is drawn around the University of Tehran's development plan. The relationship between the plan's claims and the reality field is measured using the methodology.

Keywords

• production of space
• political economy of space
• expropriated property
• university of tehran development plan