8. Citizens as Drivers for Urban Change: Citizens’ Exhibition as Participatory Tool. The Case of Hashtgerd New Town

This chapter presents the participative-visual method ‘citizens’ exhibition’ as a tool to foster public dialogue and discussion on energy and resource efficient behaviour and urban development in the New Town of Hashtgerd in Iran. The basic idea of a citizens’ exhibition is to publicly present the attitudes, goals and motivations of different people in an exhibition in order to spur public discussion and promote understanding among citizens and different stakeholders concerning an issue. A citizens’ exhibition is based on interviews with different actors. Pictures of the interviewees together with interview excerpts are arranged on posters, thus presenting a new and vivid view on the topic. The citizens’ exhibition described in this chapter was developed in the framework of the German-Iranian research project ‘Young Cities—developing energy-efficient urban fabric in the Tehran-Karaj region’ dealing with the question of which role New Towns can play as a planning strategy of sustainable urban development. For a more attractive development of New Towns such as Hashtgerd the involvement of citizens in issues of urban development and planning processes is essential. In order to find out about the points of view of Hashtgerd New Town’s residents on climate change, energy consumption patterns and obstacles as well as aspirations and needs for the development of Hashtgerd New Town, a survey was conducted among Hashtgerd citizens. From this survey a citizens’ exhibition was developed displaying the most important and interesting views. The chapter describes the process of this citizens’ exhibition as well as the interview results in detail.