Tactical Urbanism; What, Why and How? A Theoretical Framework for Tactical Urbanism

Tactical urban planning is mentioned as an emerging movement in urban planning in which citizens’ interventions in the urban space in the form of rapid and low-cost implementation is one of its main features. It is an approach that addresses alternative urban futures based on fundamental democracy and social justice. This approach seeks to realize the active action of citizens in recovering and redesigning small-scale urban spaces and promoting a sense of belonging to urban environments. However, this subject in the internal studies has gotten less precise and in-depth investigation, so the need to develop a theoretical framework for its application in domestic urban planning is felt. It seems that in our country, like many developing countries, decision-making processes in urban areas are usually top-down. Bureaucratic procedures in preparing and implementing programs do not have the necessary flexibility, and people's participation for various reasons is still not fully realized and not enough. In this situation, carrying out or facilitating some urban projects in a tactical way can increase social capital and citizen participation, improve and enhance the quality of urban spaces, and create places in the form of active citizen agency. 

This study seeks to answer the three main questions “What”, “Why”, and “How” about “Tactical Urbanism” and develop a theoretical framework of this approach for its application in urban planning and urban management. In line with research objectives, based on the systematic review method, after searching for sources and selecting optimal research documents in three stages, scientific documents were selected, and the process of content analysis, code extraction, and compilation of themes based on three categories were done. Initial verification was performed on the text of these documents. In the first stage, using the method of "library studies", the subject's background is collected with the help of an online search. In March 2017, in the first phase, 76 articles, dissertations”, and scientific-research notes were downloaded by searching for the keywords “Tactical Urban Design” and “Tactical Urbanism” in Google Scholar search environment. It should be noted that the subject of tactical urban planning, due to its nature, has been reflected more in the form of practical projects. Therefore, a significant part of the textual documents available on this subject are guides or practical reports of implemented projects. After carefully reviewing the titles and summaries of these documents, 23 titles were removed due to insufficient validity, and the texts of the 53 remaining documents in the second stage were re-examined and refined. At this stage, with a quick review of the contents, 39 scientific documents were selected. 

In the category of “What” is tactical urbanism and in the theme of “Similar Concepts”, the codes of “DIY Urbanism” and “Guerrilla Urbanism”, in the category of codes related to the theme of “Characteristics”, the codes of “Low Cost” and “Temporary” and in the category of codes associated with the theme of “Nature”, the code of “Creativity and Innovation” had the most repetition. Content analysis of the category “Why” was summarized in two categories of “Underlying Factors” in the form of 14 codes and seven themes, and also the “Benefits” of this method of urban planning in the form of 25 codes and five themes. In the first category, “long and bureaucratic procedures” and “non-accountability of government institutions”, and in the second category, “realization of citizen participation in decision-making and implementation” had the most repetition. Also, in the category of “how”, the findings of content analysis are organized in the form of the themes of “actors”, “types of applications”, “how to do” and “obstacles and challenges”. Finally, in the framework of this category, the types of tactical urban planning experiences in the form of completed projects have been analyzed. They have been set in 27 instances and eight different thematic categories. In this section, “reuse of lost spaces in the city” and “public art and details of space design” have had the most repetition among the examples.The main issues underlying the expansion of tactical urban planning in the world in our country also have their examples with differences in intensity and quality. Although tactical projects are fast, sometimes temporary, and in the format of low-cost projects, they have led to significant and permanent changes in different cities in many cases. Additionally, benefiting from the active agency experience of citizens in organizing and improving the quality of urban spaces as one of the essential benefits of expanding tactical urban planning experiences emphasizes the importance of following this approach in a planned manner. Given that the actors of this approach in different countries have included a diverse range of urban agents, involving NGOs and socially active groups, especially in urban neighborhoods, accompanying and justifying them concerning the ways to advance tactical projects, their benefits, and giving examples for ideation, is recommended. Although the decision-making and implementation of these projects in many countries are followed from the bottom up, the role of city managers, on the one hand, and academic professionals and experts in the field of urban planning, on the other hand, cannot be ignored. Various examples of tactical urban planning, presented in this study as a regular framework in several specific thematic areas, while emphasizing the contextual view, are applicable in many urban spaces and neighborhoods of our country and can be used to start tactical processes and projects. At the same time, in different neighborhoods and cities, there are undoubtedly indigenous and traditional examples of effective and active agency of citizens, especially in urban neighborhoods, whose revitalization and strengthening can improve the quality of urban spaces and help achieve various benefits of tactical urban planning.

The findings of this study can be used by local managers, urban planners, urban planning stakeholders, and non-governmental organizations to carry out tactical projects by adopting a localization approach and considering socio-cultural contexts and legal potentials.