In Iranian architecture, urban planning, and urban policy literature, the neighborhood has simultaneously been understood as a historical legacy and as an instrument for addressing contemporary urban challenges. Within part of this body of literature, the traditional neighborhood is represented through concepts such as social cohesion, place attachment, face-to-face interaction, and local centrality, with its revival proposed as a means of restoring collective urban life. Conversely, neighborhood-oriented policies often redefine the neighborhood as an administrative unit with fixed boundaries, a physical center, and formal governance structures. Adopting a critical perspective, this article examines these two dominant approaches and argues that, despite their apparent differences, both assume the neighborhood to be a pre-existing entity that can either be reproduced or deliberately constructed. The article contends that the neighborhood is neither a historical form to be recovered nor a managerial unit to be created; rather, it is a relational, temporal, and plural process emerging through the continuity of presence, lived experience, and collective action. Accordingly, neighborhood-oriented policy should move beyond attempts to engineer local communities and instead focus on creating the conditions for neighborhood becoming by expanding public agency, ensuring equitable access, and fostering enduring opportunities for social presence and interaction.

Keywords: Neighborhood, Neighborhood-Oriented Policy, Local Community, Relational Place.

     

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