Elham Lashkari - Assistant of Professor of Urban Planning and Design, Sadjad University of Technology, Mashhad, Iran
Mehrshad Khalaj - Master of Urban and Regional Planning and Design, Islamic Azad University-Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

Although, industrial revolution has considered as turning point to arise great change in the cities but this change belongs mostly to western cities which existed before ۲۰th century. Fast development and prosperity of urban planning along with comprehensive approach refer to first years of ۲۰th century. However, Iran has approximately ۵۰-year-experience to execute master and detailed Plans. All of these variable plans have been executed based on comprehensive planning. Lately, two approaches have been created in urban planning system in Iran: Master plan and Strategic and Structural approach. Although it has been about two decades since the introduction of Strategic plans in Iran, the country's planning system is still wandering between the master plan and the strategic plan. The purpose of this article is to introduce the implementation challenges of urban development plans in Iran from the Master plan to the Strategic-Structural plan. Therefore, this essay uses descriptive, case study and survey methods and tries to analyze and compare these two approaches precisely without any prejudice The results of this study show that strategic plans have a high capacity to adapt to today's urban society. Although, they face infrastructure problems, weaknesses and inconsistencies in the laws in the process of implementation and participation of different people and sectors. However, to achieve this, we need some infrastructures such as scientific and theoretical, economic and social, legal, administrative and financial, partnership and implementation. As long as these preconditions are not met, no development plan with a strategic approach will be possible.

Comprehensive Planning, Democratic Planning, Master Plan, Strategic Plan, systematic approach