A comparative analysis of building large-scale projects in developing countries by emphasizing on land value changes: Tehran-Iran Mall versus Istanbul-Third Airport

Today's cities are competitive in the process of globalization. Their survival depends on attracting as much capital as possible for the various productive, infrastructure, economic, political and social sectors. The more capital raised, the parts that use it also get improved in number and scale. The process of raising capital depends on the circumstances of each city. So that, in some cities, high demand leads to increase the capacity of economic infrastructure sectors, in others, they make demand by creating economic, social, infrastructure capacity and opportunities on a large scale. This is even more important for cities in developing countries as it helps them reach the development thresholds. Meanwhile, the Tehran (Iran) and Istanbul (Turkey) cities, due to their location, economic and political conditions, have always been challenged to attract capital. Therefore, in recent decades, they have started to make investment capacities by developing large-scale projects. This study aims to verify two of the most challenging large-scale projects in these two cities. To achieve the study’s goal, the projects and their types are first discussed. Also, the impact on the lands values in the neighboring area is evaluated as one of the existing effects on the host environment. The rate of impacts varies depending on the type of projects. According to the research findings, the essences of the two projects and the purposes of their constructions are different from each other. One attempts to attract as much capital as possible in order to show off its social and cultural capitals (Iran mall- Tehran), and the other aims at economic and political benefits in competition with similar projects. Regarding land prices, in addition to the fact that these two projects have caused significant increases in land values of the host districts, they have also transformed the social structure of the residents living there.