Improving Cultural Heritage Policy for the Preservation of Historic Minority Quarters

In the traditional structure of Iranian cities, quarters represent a geographical, social and cultural unit which are distinguished by different characteristics, such as ethnicity, religion, and economics. Today, the growing urbanism, on the one hand, and the inefficiency of urban planning, on the other hand, have caused the decline in the cultural values of many Iranian historic sites. This paper addresses the diagnosis of urban planning aiming to manage the spatial changes facing the historic minority quarters in Iran. Over the past four decades, the spatial changes in the two Armenian and Jewish quarters in the historic city of Isfahan have shown that the preservation of the urban heritage requires the fundamental policies to protect minority rights. In this way, urban management can achieve an optimal level of sustainability in the historic quarters by utilising the bottom-up model and involving the minorities in the urban planning process.