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Reviewing the Concept of Territorial Cohesion and operationalizing it in Fars Province
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Majid Delfi  , Esfandiar Zebardast *  |
| Faculty of Urban Planning, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. , zebardst@ut.ac.ir |
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Abstract: (806 Views) |
Objective: Considering the ongoing studies to review the spatial planning plan of Fars Province, the concept of "Territorial Cohesion" of the European Union can be used to set goals and measure the level of cohesion in the indicators accepted in past periods to enable better policy making for the future. By examining the spatial and regional plans in Fars Province, due to the conflicting nature of the plans' objectives and their inconsistency with the existing transitional conditions, the necessity of defining overarching concepts is felt, so that in addition to forming a comprehensive political attitude, it is possible to temporarily de-contest the concepts in the direction of public action and improve evaluation.
Method: Due to the contested nature of macro concepts such as territorial cohesion, it is necessary to approach them through a combination of essentialist/pragmatist and positivist/constructivist lenses in order to operationalize them. In this respect, the methodological structure of the INTERCO project, which was used by ESPON to develop territorial cohesion indicators, was used in the present study.
results: The concept of territorial cohesion was not directly used in the plans of Fars Province. Therefore, macro-narratives (storylines) that can implicitly express this concept were synthesized by reviewing the visions, perspectives and goals of the plans; in parallel, the criteria and indicators used for territorial cohesion were compiled from theoretical potential indicators and the ESPON thesaurus and presented in focus groups. The macro-narratives are sometimes competing, non-aligned or conflicting and were discussed in workshops (three workshops in total). Through the filter of eight criteria of the concept of territorial cohesion (used by INTERCO), four macro-territorial objectives were proposed for Fars Province, and the indicators for measuring each of the objectives and the desired direction of change were agreed. Finally, the status of cohesion for each indicator was measured by calculating sigma convergence
conclusions: The present study shows that in the year of preparation of the spatial plan of Fars province, out of 35 indicators studied in the form of four territorial goals, 14 are in a state of convergence. We also faced a lack of data to measure the indicators of governance and environmental quality at the county level, which shows the need to define and measure these indicators in future plans. |
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| Keywords: Regional Planning, Spatial Planning, Balanced Development, Territorial Convergence, Mixed research method. |
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Full-Text [PDF 1757 kb]
(41 Downloads)
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Type of Study: Research |
Subject:
عمران و شهرسازی
Received: 2024/12/17 | Accepted: 2025/03/12 | Published: 2025/06/28
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