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Urban Modernism and Gentrifying Politics in Tehran’s Neighborhoods

Since the 1990s, Tehran has engaged in a process of “re-development” of the old neighborhoods in the central part of the city, both through individual renovation of the older buildings, encouraged by an intensification policy, as well as through the building of the new highways, parks, masques and cultural centers by the Tehran municipality to modernize the city. These spatial transformations have changed the socio-spatial structure of the city, caused out-migration, and modified the perceptions and practices of everyday life in the central city neighborhoods. Yet the city remains off the sociological debates on Iran. This panel seeks to place the city and its transformation within the contemporary debates over social and economic changes in Iran. Examining the processes of “re-development” (gentrification) of different neighborhoods, we will address the changing demographics, representing identities, real estate determinations, and urban discourses and imaginaries involved in transformation of the city.
“Beyond Navab Highway: urban modernism and creation of non-neighborhood” will examine the building of the Navab highway and residential complex as an example of a modernist approach as well as a neoliberal projectification of the city planning in Tehran during the 1990s.
“How Grand Bazaar Resists Gentrification?” examines how a popular neighborhood around the main center of commerce in Tehran has remained outside the heavy interventions in the urban fabric and resisted the development projects.
“The Story of the Construction of the New Mosque in the Palestine Neighborhood” will examine how Palestine Square, the central square of an old neighborhood of the same name, became part of Tehran’s Friday praying zone, chosen as a site for construction of a new mosque. The article examines different narratives about the neighborhood and its recent transformations.
“Plans for the Rehabilitation and Renewal of Robatkarim, a Neighborhood in the Southern Part of Tehran”looks at the ways in which a low-income neighborhood can be modernized without displacing its original population.

Presentations

Beyond Navab Highway: Urban Modernism and the Creation of a “Non-neighborhood” in Tehran
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This article will focus on the construction of Navab highway as a case study of the changing economic ‘rationality’ of urban governance in Iran. In 1990s Navab Street, an old North-South street linking many neighborhoods in central Tehran, has become a major element of the new strategic plan of Tehran highway network. The project, the largest demolishing and relocation project since the ‘crusade of street building’ in 1920, was included in Tehran’s first comprehensive plan (1968) as the only main North-South motorway to provide fast access to and from the North and the center of the city. This was a mega scale project, and the financial resources needed for purchasing the land and construction were so high that the municipality did not dare to start the project before the 1979 Revolution and during the war following the Revolution.
In the postwar era, inspite of the financial difficulties, the Tehran municipality initiated the implementation of the project. To finance the costs of the Navab project, the City decided to develop the land needed for the construction of the highway into a new urban complex with high density residential and commercial units. About 3 thousand families were relocated by compulsory purchase orders, and more than 130 high rise buildings with nearly 6 thousands apartments were constructed in a 30 meter wide strip bordering the 5 kilometer highway.
But the impact of the project goes beyond its physical borders. Navab laid the foundations of a new economic rationality for urban projects, especially restoration and upgrading projects, which could be summed up as relying on commercial and real estate surplus to finance the non commercial projects. I will discuss the social impact of such ‘economic rationality’ for the citizens, especially those who live in inner city neighborhoods and face renovation and upgrading projects.

How Grand Bazaar Resists Gentrification!
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In the context of the metropolization of Tehran, some of the popular neighborhoods of the city have remained beyond the changes and heavy intervention in the urban fabric which have transformed drastically the rest of the city. The old neighborhoods in the area of the Grand Bazaar of Tehran are significant examples of this process. This article looks for the possible answers to the question of how the morphological continuity and the endurance of the physical and social environment of the neighborhoods around Grand Bazaar could be explained, despite existing development projects for the area and the growing prices of the land, which has been a big incentive for change during recent decades.
Through my fieldwork in two central neighborhoods of Teheran, started in 2008 and finished in 2011, I will examine a combination of factors such as demographic data about the residents, mainly migrants; their linkages through collective, social, and religious practices; and the economic actors in the neighborhoods in order to explain the context of the local resistance to the developmental projects. I will argue that most of the residents, who participated in the Revolution of 1979 and fought in the Iran-Iraq war, feel they have the right to resist the imposed top-down urban interventions. In this paper I will show how the neighborhoods are in the process of gradual transformation and modernization from inside-out. To this end, I will analyze the “interspaces” of negotiations between the population and the government.

The Story of the Construction of the New Mosque in the Palestine Neighborhood
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This article examines the recent transformation of the Palestine neighborhood, located in the central part of Tehran, through the construction of the Palestine Mosque. Looking at the history of the neighborhood, I will explain how, in the early decades of this century, the building of a new irrigation channel to address the main issue of water-shortage in Tehran, enabled the development of the city further to the north, and attracted to the area prosperous residents from around Tehran. The neighborhood has gone through many ups and downs during these years. However, the changes have been quite dramatic in the last two decades. This includes the out-migration of some of the old residents and the conversion of residential buildings into office and commercial spaces. Yet, many of the old residents, having a strong sense of belonging, chose to remain in the neighborhood. After the Islamic revolution of 1979, the central square of the neighborhood, Palestine square, became part of Tehran’s Friday praying zone centered at Tehran university, and attracting thousands of people to this religious- political ceremony. The construction of the mosque aimed to provide the area with a new religious space, and with a symbol strong enough to redefine the spirit of the area.
Unlike the holistic approach to history, this article approaches the neighborhood's history as a multilayered narrative, comprising various particular narratives and the different perspectives of the social actors, and reflecting individual interests as well as macro-structures such as politics, economy, and social tradition. I will compare different sets of residents' narratives and perspectives regarding the aims and functions of building the mosque. The explanations are documented through the use of maps, photographs, historical correspondences, biographies and other related local documents. I will argue that in building the mosque, according to various narratives, little attention has been paid to the history of the neighborhood, and this has led to an obvious disassociaiton between local residents and the mosque as a public institution.

Plans for the Rehabilitation and Renewal of Robatkarim, a Neighborhood in the Southern Part of Tehran
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This presentation is a brief introduction to the realization of a rehabilitation and renewal plan in one of the most deprived areas in the southern part of the Iranian capital Tehran.
The study focuses on two stages of this process: First, it examines the rehabilitation and renewal plan for the Robatkarim neighborhood, approved by the Organization of Urban Renewal at Tehran municipality, which takes into account the physical, social and economic conditions of the neighbourhood. In the course of drafting this plan, the Consultancy gave local people the possibility to have input in the plans according to their real needs, and also provided small projects to cover those needs (e.g. it organized workshops and courses to empower the female population to improve their economic situation).

Second, the study examines the logistics of establishing a local renewal office in that neighborhood, and the mobilization of a group of 18 local households to come together, merge their plots and start the construction of a small new apartment building in the place of their old collapsing houses. The most noteworthy part of the whole renewal project is the fact that the land acquisition and merging of 12 parcels in one of the most decayed areas of the Robatkarim neighborhood was done with the aim to keep to original population in place, and to enable them to own a small new apartment in return for their small plots of lands