Comprehensive citywide planning is a practice that many cities undertake regularly. In theory, the principles laid out in citywide plans can help guide the distribution of public and private investments that shape the future development of that city. In recent years, many major cities have been incorporating equity goals and frameworks into planning efforts in attempts to close long-standing racial gaps. Although urban planning, as a field, has espoused goals of participation and shared power in development decisions, power and influence is often concentrated among wealthier households and institutions. Participation in planning processes often involves conflict between opposing interests, and development outcomes are often inequitable. Comprehensive planning has the potential to change some development rules and processes that lead to inequitable outcomes, but this is contingent upon shifting power and influence away from wealthy and elite citizens and institutions. Research on power and empowerment is critical to understanding how influence is manifested through planning policies and processes. The City of Chicago’s “We Will Chicago” plan provides a case example of how city planning processes attempt to engage stakeholders in developing a vision and goals that align with traditionally marginalized groups.

Control over the management of urban land use is one the local government powers with the greatest influence on the lives of residents (the other being the budget). Yet in Iran, despite political decentralization, the responsibility for land use rests with the central government and the relevant local branches of the relevant ministries. Chapter 7 reviews the history and legal framework of master planning as well as the economic pressures that led governments to ignore their municipalities’ master plans during the 1990s. The chapter describes how a controversial urban renewal project in the early 1990s led to calls for greater local participation in the development and design of plans by the new elected council. It then examines the effort to give the municipality a greater and indeed determinative role in city planning and land use management during the preparation of the third Tehran Master Plan 2003–2007. A success in the capital city would have created a precedent and model for many other cities. While national media brought the issue to public attention and local representatives had unprecedented involvement in city planning, ultimately the city council failed to achieved more than an informal role with formal responsibility remaining with the central government. The chapter concludes by highlighting the great difficulties and challenges of achieving greater local participation in complex and technical areas of local governance such as land use planning.