Extended Abstract
Background and Objectives: The formation of the urban landscape, as a reflection of a city’s culture and identity, involves both objective and subjective dimensions. In recent years, urban planning in Iran has encountered difficulties in managing the urban landscape. The failure to implement urban projects effectively highlights the absence of control and visual guidance regulations, which serve as tools for urban policies, thereby complicating efforts to address urban landscape issues. Comprehensive research has not yet focused on identifying and ranking the semantic-identity challenges of Iran’s urban landscape. Although numerous studies have explored urban landscapes, a comprehensive approach to categorizing, prioritizing, and addressing these challenges has been largely overlooked, forming the basis for this research. The overall goal of this study was to identify and rank the challenges of Iran’s urban landscape based on expert opinions.
Methods: This research adopted a mixed-methods approach, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative components, to thoroughly identify and prioritize the semantic-identity challenges of the urban landscape in Iran. A comprehensive and focused search was conducted across domestic and international databases, as well as reputable publications in landscape architecture, using relevant keywords such as “landscape,” “urban landscape,” “urban image” (visual aspect of landscape), and “historical and contemporary landscape.” A total of 256 articles were collected, and more than 40 domestic and international studies from the past decade were carefully selected for further analysis. Content analysis of these studies was performed to extract the semantic-identity challenges facing Iran’s urban landscape. The identified challenges were categorized using the “Trilogy Analysis model” for a more structured approach. In the third step, expert opinions were gathered by asking a sample group of professionals in fields related to urban landscape (urban planning, architecture, and landscape) to rank the challenges within each category. For ranking, the one-sample t-test and Friedman test were applied using SPSS 24 software. A total of 240 questionnaires were distributed online to experts using the snowball technique, and 118 were completed within seven days.
Findings: “Structural challenges” in the urban landscape primarily relate to urban governance and decision-making processes. These challenges include issues such as the failure to convert urban landscape development plans into actionable outcomes. A major contributing factor to this problem is the inefficiency of regulatory systems. In Iran’s urban planning system, the monitoring and evaluation aspects are often overlooked. Specifically, there are no proper criteria for visual control of the urban landscape, or they are neglected. Additionally, the lack of adjustment in protection programs for historical cities has resulted in significant changes in recent urban developments. In addressing the challenges in the “content and behavioral” sector, attention was also given to the behavior of urban landscape professionals and the general public. Limited public participation in Iran’s urban planning system has long been an issue. The absence of public involvement in the design phase leads to a neglect of the visual and perceptual aspects of the city in the minds of citizens, as well as the cognitive and semantic dimensions of projects. As a result, many urban landscapes fail to establish meaningful connections with users, contributing to a sense of placelessness and lack of identity in cities. Furthermore, a significant challenge in the urban planning system is the absence of a common language between the academic community, professionals, and urban managers, leading to ineffective communication between these groups.
The findings showed no significant differences between the averages. However, based on expert opinions and the one-sample t-test, the three contextual challenges with the highest averages were:
1. Crisis and chaos in the landscape of contemporary cities.
2. Transformation of the cityscape and the loss of balance in the city’s appearance.
3. The disconnection between the historical and contemporary landscapes in cities.
In the category of “structural challenges,” inefficient oversight systems and the lack of evaluation and assessment in implemented plans are identified as the most critical issues. Challenges related to the behavior of professionals and citizens in the urban landscape fall under the content (behavioral) branch. Among these, the disregard for the concept of meaning is a key factor contributing to the phenomenon of placelessness in cities. This issue highlights the need for urban management to focus on the perceptual and visual aspects of citizens, which can be addressed through active public participation in creating the landscape.
Conclusion: This research, which specifically addresses the challenges within a particular area of the urban planning system, will be more effective in resolving issues in this field and can more purposefully determine the path of future actions in the urban landscape. Despite the abundance of studies focused on the urban landscape, a comprehensive examination of the semantic-identity challenges of the urban landscape, addressing both the objective and subjective aspects, has not been sufficiently explored. The findings of this research can be valuable and the results indicate that the three-part classification of 1) content (behavioral) challenges, 2) structural challenges, and 3) contextual challenges ranked in order of importance from first to third. To tackle the issues and challenges of the urban landscape, priority should be given to addressing “behavioral challenges.” Conversely, contextual challenges, such as the lack of sufficient knowledge in the landscape field or the adaptation of global guidelines to local ones, rank last in importance.