NEW TOWNS AND THEIR PRACTICAL CHALLENGES - THE EXPERIENCE OF POULAD-SHAHR IN IRAN

Iran's rapidly growing urban population is concentrated in a few large cities. Using the new town strategy, the government of Iran plans to direct future population growth and economic activities from large cit ies such as Tehran, Esfahan, Mashad, Shiraz and Tabriz to new towns ar ound them. The strategy recommends that new towns should be balanced a nd self-contained. This paper examines the case study of Poulad Shahr, a major new town located in the Esfahan Region, where the new town st rategy has been more vigorously applied than anywhere else in Iran. Sp ecifically, it describes and evaluates the practical challenges that s urrounded its development in the past and the implications of these ch allenges for Poulad Shahr and other new towns in the Esfahan Region an d elsewhere in Iran in the future. It is concluded that Poulad Shahr h as a long and difficult road ahead to reach its target population of 5 00,000 and become a dynamic, balanced and self-contained new town. The analysis and findings of this paper are useful to planners, other pro fessionals and public policy makers involved in new town planning in I ran and other developing countries. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.