A political ecological critique of placemaking: Realizing Chitgar Lake as a collective desired waterscape in Tehran

Abstract

For at least six decades, having a waterfront has been a collective desire in Tehran. In its recent endeavor, this is materialized in Chitgar Lake, a human-made waterscape, filled artificially from Kan River Valley. Located in the westernmost part of Tehran, in the vicinity of the Central Iranian Desert, this lake is an iconic core of newly constructed District 22. The purpose of this urban development was to demarcate the westward expansion of Tehran as well as to compensate for the insufficient urban facilities and public spaces in the booming megacity.
By situating Chitgar Lake within a political ecology framework, this article develops a critical multi-scalar approach to conceptualize Chitgar as a placemaking project that aimed to promote Tehran as a capital city for modernized Iran.
To understand the discursive and material production of this waterscape, the content about the collective desire of having a waterfront in Tehran, in general, and Chitgar Lake, in particular, will be analyzed. In doing so, the existing literature and documents are categorized according to socio-political attributes of the actor groups as follows: 1) politicians and bureaucrats, 2) academics and technicians, 3) cultural elites, 4) social and environmental activists, and 5) citizens. The analyzed material includes political debates, national, regional, and urban planning documents, academic and belletristic literature, and social network content. Based on a qualitative study, we disentangle why, how, and to what extent these different actor groups imagine, propagate and/or implement the “desired” waterscape in Tehran.