ABSTRACT
The production of city plans may exist at two levels. This chapter looks at both these levels in the past and present land use planning in Tehran. It examines what these plans tell about Iran and Iranian political processes over the past half century, and what light the current implementation of plans sheds on general processes of urban development and on the particular circumstances which are found in the Islamic Republic. The chapter focuses on the Master Plan of 1969 and ask the question as to be the plan, what its aspirations were, and what the contemporary reality is. It draws on field work and documentary study of Tehran. The old core of Tehran is some twenty kilometres from the foot of the Alborz Mountains. The grid has a number of potential disadvantages for modern traffic management but there are reasons for its use in Tehran other than a simple desire for order.
