Planning Urban Communities; Mainstreaming UrbanTransformation for Climate Change Adaptation

Climate and environmental-related challenges are amongst the most serious concerns threatening lives and livelihoods. Despite overall agreement of the exigency to pay attention to climate variations, there are still few practical approaches that are decisively shifting urban development in a sustainable, resilient direction. This research aims to explore sustainable urban transformation, focusing on the scale of the transformation processes and multi-dimensional changes that would effectively address urban development towards ambitious environmentally sustainable goals. We try to debate a practical experience on the importance of taking action on climate change at the local level along with the application of a climate smart regional planning. Concluding a two year professional practice in Anzali Free Economic Zone (AFEZ), Iran, this paper will advance the following proposition; for a sustainable urban and regional transformation to be realized, communities also need to be planned in details along with the regions and urban settlements.

Keywords:

Sustainable Development , Environmental Variations , Urban Transformation , Climate Change , Climate Smart Planning.