The story of contemporary Esfahan is told as a tale of two cities. The first tale is of the former capital of the country, a heritage site containing acclaimed gardens, fountains and the finest examples of Safavid architecture, the other is about industrialization and urban development. The first image, a source of national pride and international recognition often stands opposed to the second, one that continuously pushes forwards through population growth, urbanization, and urban sprawl. Environmental perils, such as the effects of air pollution and the drying up of the Zayandeh Roud river that flows through the heart of the city are seen as result of modernity and capitalism, which naturally eat away at the heritage zones in the old city. Consequently, literature on city planning in Iran which deal with the relationship between the modern and the traditional structures of the city focus on conservation and protection of ‘heritage environments’ from the ‘modern’ demands of society. However, as this paper seeks to illustrate, this perspective is changing, with new conceptualizations of the ‘modern’ which seek increasingly to integrate the old structures (baaft)of the city with the new. This paper will focus on two constructions in Esfahan. The first is the Jahan-Nama tower, which was built approximately 800 meters from the famed Naghshe Jahan Square. The proximity of the tower to the square made it a highly controversial issue with criticism from the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization, and threats from UNESCO to remove the square from the World Heritage Site list, condemnation from Nobel Prize winning human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi and eventually a court order to remove two floors from the complex. The second is the Nazhvan Natural Park, a 1163 hectare park in the West of the city. Contrary to traditional geometrically shaped gardens such as Bagh-e Hezar Jarib (square) and Bagh-e Farahabad (rectangular) the park is planned as a wild natural conservancy which will retain the ‘natural’ ecology of Nazhvan. Based on trade publications, city records, ethnographic material from 2008 and 2009, together with interviews with city planners, both public and private, particularly from Shahr-o-Khane, the private developers involved in both the cases, this paper seeks to highlight the changing perspectives of what it means to be a modern city, transforming Esfahan into a living city. It will be argued that these new conceptualizations are consequences of new global ideas of modern cities and urban ecologies.