Spatial inequality in Tehran, a structural explanation (original) (raw)
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Spatial inequality and dislocation in Tehran’s urban region
Author: Zohreh A. Daneshpour Chapter in a book: Published in "Cities in City Regions- Governing the Diversity", 2007, Edited By: J.E. Klausen and P. Swianiewics, Part One, Chapter Two: "Spatial Inequality and Dislocation in Tehran's Urban Region", in English. Book available at: http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp\_27%3AJan%20Erling%20Klausen & Related Conference Paper: orally presented in English by the author in the “First Bi-Annual EURA Conference: Cities in City-Regions”, 11-14, 2006, Warsaw, Poland. Abstract The ignorance of the relevant authorities and the existing planning documents in Tehran, have helped the formation and escalation of income inequalities related problems, altogether endangering the sustainable development of the whole urban region. It seems that the public sector activities have been mostly oriented towards replying the needs of higher socio-economic groups. This can be an indication of their lack of will or power to remedy inequalities and to fight against the low ‘quality of life’, not only in the worse-off settlements in Tehran’s urban region, but also in the city of Tehran and in this way preventing the dislocation of the lowest groups to the worst parts of the urban region and adding to those areas’ previous problems. In the long term this means the gradual gentrification of parts of Tehran. It must be noted that some of the problems in Tehran and its urban region affect poor and wealthy to the same extent, as there is no safe place to escape to from such problems as pollution and traffic congestion, though there is a rather clear demarcation line between the place of residence of the different socio-economic groups. The continuation of the existing trends will definitely compound the historically unresolved problems of Tehran and its urban region and will reduce the opportunities of applying any solution to resolve or reduce the intensity of the problems deep rooted in the unequal socio-economic structure. Key words: spatial inequality, dislocation, intra-regional inequality, inter-regional inequality natural and socio-economic injustices, disadvantaged groups of society, inequality-related research and policy-making, private sector developers and speculators, urban region, control mechanism, Tehran.
Spatial inequality and dislocation in Tehran's urban region: Conference paper
Conference Paper, orally presented in English by the author in the “First Bi-Annual EURA Conference: Cities in City-Regions”, 11-14, 2006, Warsaw, Poland. Abstract Tehran's urban region, similar to many metropolitan regions of mainly the less developed countries of the world, suffers from problems such as spatial inequalities, unbalanced settlement system, unsuitable quality of life, degradation of the natural environment, weak and disintegrated planning mechanism and dominance of property developers' intentions and activities over the predetermined public decisions. Indeed, during the pre and post 1979 era, not only the trend in the development of Tehran (the capital of Iran) has been towards the continuing mixture of primarily unplanned and random planned growth, the resultant unequal spatial structure has been reinforced. It is thus, the intention of this paper, to illustrate this unequal picture, to consider briefly the factors behind the formation of such a structure, the forces behind the dislocation of people and the consequences of the continuation of the existing trends. _____________________________________________________________________
Analysing spatial inequality in Tehran's housing system, via changing prices during 1992-2016
Geography and Development Journal, 2018
Access to housing in a society is a popular goal that its achievement could be challenged by disregarding the social status of housing and the lack of systematic approach in housing policy-making and planning processes. This would result in spatial (i.e., multidimensional) inequality. Tehran, is a complex urban system, which its complexity makes it more vulnerable when confronting deficiencies in policy-making. The existence and continuity of such a problematic situation has affected negatively the access of a significant part of the population in Tehran to housing. The purpose is to study the extent and condition of spatial inequality in the housing system of Tehran and to its variance among the 22 urban districts of Tehran. To achieve the set purpose of this paper, a dual descriptive-analytical path has been designed. The first path review the literature and propose the theoretical and methodological framework. The second path study and analyze the spatial inequality in residential system of Tehran via statistical and geographical clustering. The analysis of spatial inequality in the housing system of Tehran was based on the indicator of housing price, as an indicator that represents the overall and total values of the objective and subjective value system of housing. The massive growth of house price over the studied period, which rests in the framework of market mechanism in Tehran, has led to the accentuation of the capitalist aspect of housing, itself exacerbating inequality among owners and non-owners.
In today's world which has turned into an arena for increasing development of urban spaces, a sort of spatial-structural inequality can be observed in urban places of the world particularly in developing countries which has manifested itself in special formats and symbols. This study surveys and analyzes the spatial-structural inequality phenomenon in two metropolises of Islamic world-Tehran and Cairo. It tries to explain the mechanism by which these spatial inequalities appear as well as differences and similarities of their effects. In this study informal settlements are selected as a component which particularly implies spatialstructural inequality. The goal of this study is recognition of spatial pattern of formation of unequal and contradictory spaces in these two metropolises. The approach of this research is descriptive, analytic and casual-comparative.
Socio-Spatial Segregation Dimensions in the city of Tehran
Abstract: There have always been various urban divisions in cities, which are not necessarily undesirable phenomena, as such divisions, to some extent, make it possible for people to choose their residential area according to their financial limitations and social, religious or racial preferences. But, at a certain point, division might turn into the problem of“segregation”. It emerges when anomalies such as inequality in using of space, lack of basic infrastructure services, traffic congestion and social abnormalities become palpable in some parts of a city and, consequently, the area transforms into a separated and isolated region. This research aims to identify significant sources leading to socio-spatial segregation in Tehran as its case study, especially those segregations with obvious effects on spatial structure of the city. Highways are the most important sources that distort the connection between areas through creating isolated islands. The hysteria of highway building, as a traffic management strategy, too, cannot but intensify the isolation. The theoretical framework of the research is based on Henry Lefebvre’s ideas about the “right to the city”. In “The Urban Revolution” he explains the concept of ‘segregation’ as distinguished from concepts like ‘difference’. While the former is a type of detachment that destroys the totality of a complex (i.e tearing the city apart), the latter, ‘difference’, is a relationship, creating proximity or distance. ‘Difference’ also produces “form” through the freedom of information, whereas segregation brings a reverse situation: formlessness and isolated information (Lefebvre, Writing on Cities, p.153). Segregation in Tehran has taken different shapes in different ways, evolving hand in hand with certain social changes. As the beginning steps, the city was divided into North and South by “Enghelab Avenue”, comprising several models of socio-spatial segregation. Through 1930s, a special zoning pattern, largely based on class segregation, was one of the priorities of the urban management, and remained dominant until the Islamic revolution of 1979. Meanwhile, the large immigration of villagers from the peripheries to the metropolitan areas brought about informal communities within the city, which, in turn, were gradually marginalized and pushed to the marginal urban frontiers. On the other side, there were the most opulent neighbourhoods at the far north, constituting the first gated communities in the modern Middle East. Although some of these divisions faded away after the revolution, they were reproduced in new forms through recent decades. Nowadays, the segregated areas of Tehran consist of a wide range of fabrics, from the inner part of “Bazaar” to the self-contained “Islam-Shahr” and the isolated South Islam-Abad, surrounded by some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods of Tehran. This research will try to pave the way for future strategies and suitable planning for these segregated and isolated neighbourhoods in the city of Tehran. The research methodology is based on the historical, social and spatial analysis which is formulated by Madanipour in his debate about social exclusion (Madanipour, 2011). The suitable tools for achieving the required information are related literature and available mapping and the use of statistic information for obtaining a better understanding of the issue.
2016
One of the most prominent consequences of rapid urbanization has recently been the disintegrated distribution of municipal services which predisposes inequality in citizens' benefiting from these services. Therefore, the city planners and managers' main goal must be to achieve the ideal of 'equality of opportunities' to help different groups of urban population have access to public services and eliminate conflicts in the provision of opportunities. In the present descriptive-analytical study, after specifying the indicators, ten regions of Tabriz are ranked in terms of the distribution of municipal services using three different methods (per capita land use, accessibility and residents' idea) and action priorities are presented for each region. The results of this study show that Tabriz has an inappropriate spatial distribution of public services and the population is incompatible with the distribution of services. Region 8 is in a good condition compared to the...
The emergence of government-imposed spatial segregation in Tehran
Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, 2019
Purpose By analyzing urbanism products, development plans and the process of modernization in Iran, the purpose of this paper is to critically trace the effect of dictatorial control on urbanism and the emergence of government-imposed urban segregation. Design/methodology/approach The main body of this work is concentrated on studying the history of urbanism in Iran, of which collecting data and descriptions played a crucial role. To prevent the limitations associated with singular methods, the methodology of this research is based on methodological triangulation (Denzin, 2017). With the triangulation scheme, the data are gathered by combining different qualitative and quantitative methods such as library, archival and media research, online resources, non-participatory observation and photography. For the empirical part, the city of Tehran is selected as the case study. Moreover, individual non-structured interviews with the locals were conducted to gain more insights regarding the...
Bagh-e Nazar, 2022
Problem statement: Capitalism, in its modern sense, has been associated with the Industrial Revolution and is a system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are at one’s disposal. A system that has three basic characteristics; Complete competition includes freedom of choice and consumption. Capital circulation and accumulation of capital are some of the most important and main features of the capitalist system (CS) and capital due to its inherent nature (profitability). These features lead to the production and creation of new spaces in cities and metropolises. What in most developed countries are seen and are becoming apparent in all urban areas, including public spaces (PSS) and megamalls. Similarly, there is a CS in the cities of Iran, and the capital accumulation flow has failed to create a productive infrastructure in the cities, and capitalism, trade, monopoly, and rent have been formed. Controls and packages are created. Therefore, in Iran, as in developing countries, a CS has become common, but with different nature, in which many factors play a role in shaping this system and have produced spaces. Research objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the rentier capitalist system (RCS) on the urban spaces of Tehran in the form of megamalls. Research method: This research is by objectively basic-applied type, and the documentarylibrary method was used to collect theoretical sources and logical analysis. Conclusion: The results indicate that in recent decades, the spaces of Tehran in the form of megamalls have replaced the uses of public spaces such as parks and public spaces (PSS) and since the 1980s, these spaces have been monitored and controlled. Urban spaces (USS) have become a rent-seeking, competitive, consumer, and unproductive space that has driven the majority of urban dwellers to the outskirts of cities, making them a merely accessible place for the affluent and the capitalist class to make more profit
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Spatial Analysis of Urban Poverty in Tehran Metropolis
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Urban poverty is one of the main concerns of the 21 st century and fighting against it is at the top of the millennium development goals. This paper has been done aiming to identify and analyze spatially areas of urban poverty. It has been done with quantitative method and survey based on secondary analysis in Tehran Metropolis in a way that calculated items were categorized based on four main factors of housing including economic, social, cultural, and educational ones and 43 indexes. They were selected by using statistical blocks data of Tehran Metropolis based on population and housing census in 2011. The results indicated that four extracted factors determine 72.7 percent of distribution of the total variance including housing poverty (28.7 percent), economic poverty (18.4 percent), social poverty (14.1 percent), and educational-cultural poverty (11.5 percent) respectively. They also indicated that districts 17, 19, 18, and 16 had the highest ranks regarding all poverty factors ...