Spatial Discrimination in Tehran’s Modern Urban Planning 1906–1979

Abstract

This article studies the relationship between social culture and spatial discrimination in the modern urban planning of Tehran. It examines how planning attempts during the Qajar era began to enrich the ideas of citizenship and public space, which in effect transformed the racial and religious discriminations to new forms of segregation based on economic classes. It shows how multiple planning practices during Reza Shah favored a uniform modernist style to create an imaginary national identity. The divergence of socioeconomic classes under Shah’s planning practices is also analyzed to show the spatial discrimination that the new urban poor had to bear.