TEHRAN V.F. Costello Many of Tehran's problems stem from the speed with which the city has grown, its present size and its likely rapid growth in the future. The city has grown from a population of just over half a million in 1940 to 1.7 million in 1956, 2.7 million in 1966 and 4.6 million in 1976, increasing at a rate of 5.7 per cent per annum between 1956 and 1966 and 5.3 per cent per annum from 1966 to 1976, It is thus one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the Third World and, to take a com: parison with other countries in the Middle East, Iran’s capital alone contains more people than Israel, Lebanon or Jordan. The population is likely to be about six million in 1981, and by 1991 between eight and ten milion, + The physical expansion of the city has been equally rapid. Between 1940 and 1956 its area expanded by three times; in 1966 the total ‘built up area was 180 km?, and it was expected to cover some 400 km? by 1991. This expansion has been on a site where the physical environ- ‘ment imposes severe constraints. Greater Tehran is built at an average altitude of about 1200 m on a gentle slope running south from the Alburz mountains. The climate has marked seasonal contrasts, with a short spring and autumn separating a long and severely cold winter and lengthy hot dry summer. But summer temperatures in the north close to the mountains are up to 7°C cooler than those in the south. The traditional core of Tehran is sited 20 km from the foot of the Alburz ‘mountains on an east-west road, at a point where the road divides into two on either side of the foothills; this site provides reedy access southwards to Qom and central Iran, and also commands the valleys leading northwards to the Caspian provinces. The advantage of poten- tially good communications is countered by the physical limitations of the site, which is some distance from either of the two prineipal rivers of the region — the Karaj and the Jaji Rud ~ and far enough from the ‘mountains to be beyond the reach of perennial streams. From its inception, Tehran has always had to rely on artificial water supplies, initially through the use of gravity-fed underground canals, called {ganats, the number of which increased throughout the nineteenth century. The inadequacy of the water supply to meet the needs of the expanding city is a continuing feature of Tehran's history, and there are 156 Tehran 157 problems both in the provision of domestic water and in sewage disposal. ‘The demand for water has consistently outstripped supply, and the city has only the beginnings of an integrated sewage system. At present, most human waste is discharged untreated into the ground or into water courses, greatly increasing potential hazards from disease Tehran's site, size and layout have also created other environmental problems. The transport network has become progressively less capable of dealing with the volumes of traffic generated by an increasing population and rising car-ownership rates. Many of those who are employed have two or more jobs, and congestion is aggravated by the extra vehicular movements which result. The accumulation of exhaust gases from the vehicles which crowd the streets — vehicles for which there are no emission-control regulations — produces severe air-pollution problems, comparable to Los Angeles before controls were introduced. Urban growth out from the core has been much influenced by the environmental contrasts between north and south. The modern commercial centre, together with the suburbs where live the wealthier sections of the population, has developed northward from the old core towards the mountains, while the poorer suburbs have developed. southwards towards the desert. ‘The contrast between the northern and southern suburbs of Tehran is illustrated in a number of quantifiable variables: in the mid-1960s population densities in the south were well in excess of 19,000 persons per km?, while in some parts of the north they were less than a tenth of that figure; average monthly incomes showed a similar disparity (Connell, 1973). One park alone in the northern suburbs was over six times the size of the only substantial open space neat the city centre (Bahrambeygui, 1977), While the old core is showing some signs of local population decline, with a corresponding increase in densities in the inner suburbs, Table 5.1 illustrates one important fact about the city: despite its physical expansion, mainly to the north, the amount of living space available per household is becoming smaller. In 1976 some 22,000 households were recorded as having seven or more persons living in one room, ‘The north-south contrast is one of the recurring themes of Tehran's social geography. It represents not simply a distinction in wealth and access to power between one class and another but a wider division in Iranian society between a westernised, technologically oriented elite and middle class and the tradition-oriented mass of the population, In the wider national context, Tehran is of course considerably larger than any other Iranian city. Already by 1940 Tehran was over twice the158° Tehran ‘Table 5.1: Private Households by Size and Number of Rooms Occupied Rooms per Household 1 23 46 overs Percontage ofall Households 1966 6.96 a2 416 98 1976 aL 4042 239 397 ‘Sources: a. Plan Organisation (1966), Vol. 10, Tehran Shahrestan.b. Plan and Budget Organisation (1976), Five Per Cent Sample, Tehran Shahrestan, size of the next largest city (Tabriz); by 1966 some ten per cent of the country’s total population was living in Tehran, and by 1976 this figure was 13.6 per cent. At this time the city was almost seven times the size of the next largest urban area, Isfahan. As the country’s capit and the business, cultural, educational and communications contre, it has attracted a large proportion of the country’s resources: at least 40 per cent of large industrial firms, 70 per cent of industrial value added and 90 per cent of public and private decision-making centres aro con- ccentrated in the city. Here also are a large proportion of the country’s social amenities: in 1964 one-third of Iran’s doctors lived in the capital and more than half the country’s telephones were installed there (ssawi, 1969). Urban Growth ‘There has been a settlement on the site of Tehran since at least 1100 AD, though the city's importance dates only from 1786, when it was chosen by the founder of the Qajar dynasty, Muhammed Shah Qajar, as his| capital. It then had a population of about 15,000. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the population was about 60,000, mostly living in closely packed residential quarters within the line of the old wall (Gating from 1553). By the turn of the century a distinctive number of features of Tehran's development were apparent: the city was, with about 250,000 inhabitants, by far the largest in Iran; the social geography of the city was already showing signs of marked differentiation on the grounds of wealth and power rather than tribe or religion; the physical difficulties of the site were revealed in regular summer shortages of water; and continued expansion was fuelled partly by royal patronage Tehran 159 and central-government expenditure, to some extent at the expense of provincial Iran, since tribal and provincial leaders were forced to pay large sums to the Shah (Bahrambeygui, 1977), ‘The progressive concentration of administrative and commercial activity in Tehran was accelerated after Reza Shah Pahlavi seized power, and under his reign (1925-41) population increased to approx- imately 700,000. A number of ministries were built within the bounds Of the palace complex and the University of Tehran was founded. Following a dangerous water shortage, a scheme was initiated to build a ‘52 km canal to bring water from the Karaj river, capable of delivering, 1.3 m/s, and a number of artesian wells were dug (Planhol, 1968). The water was distributed through the city by the traditional means of open channels, called jubs. The Shah was determined to reorder the city along lines similar to those of Haussmann in Paris. Lockhart (1939) describes the results From being an Oriental city, without good communications and with but few modern amenities, it has been radically re-planned and re-built. Under the direction of HIM. the Shah, a most thorough and far-reaching town-planning scheme has been drawn up and put into execution. The ramparts and fosse surrounding the city have disappeared, and broad new avenues, intersecting each other at right-angles, have been cut through what were formerly squalid and congested parts. These new thoroughfares, which will remain as Permanent records of an enlightened administration, are well, designed and planned. At their points of intersection, attractive ‘monuments and fountains have been placed, and slong them are rising many new public and private buildings, whose style of architecture is in keeping with the Iranian national spirit. ‘The grid-iron pattern described here was subsequently extended to the rest of the city as it grew. Although this form of layout has a num: ber of potential disadvantages with regard to modem traffic manage- ‘ment, there were reasons for its use in Tehran other than a simple desire for order, as Planhol (1968) explains the most desirable orientation for a house is east-west at right angles to the mountain breeze, which is essential for freshness in summer and must be allowed to pass freely through the dwelling at night. It is also preferable, on account of the winter cold, for the main facades of the house to face south. Building-plots must therefore be160 Terhan oriented north-south, with the house built at the northern end facing the garden, which occupies the whole of the southern part. It follows that the roads should run from east to west (bordered on the south by the rear walls of houses and on the north by garden-gates), and be cut from north to south by the broad avenues that carry the principal irrigation channels. The orientation of the houses with regard to the winds, and the consequent shape of the plots, have thus confirmed the strict chequerboard pattern of the streets, Reza Shah’s network, based originally on the limits of properties, which had been conditioned by natural circumstances, has therefore been extended with absolute regularity throughout all of the newer sectors of the city, Off the main avenues which were driven through the southem districts, the alleyways remained as irregular as ever, Reza Shah's reconstruction programme created thousands of new jobs, many of which were filled by migrants, who helped to swell the city’s fast-growing population. While the proportion of Iran’s popu- lation living in urban areas remained at about 21 per cent throughout the first 40 years of the twentieth century, Tehran appears to have grown at over twice the rate of other urban areas, so that by 1940 it was assuming a position of primacy over the rest of the urban system, How far the city’s population growth is due to migeation and how far to other factors is uncertain, for a number of reasons: data on vital rates and on migration were unreliable before the First National Census of 1956; expansion of the city limits accounts for some growth, since Shemiran and Rey were incorporated only after the first census; and in any case migration and natural increase are not independent of one another. Migration of younger portions of the population from rural to urban areas may result in rapid urban growth with, a little later, « higher natural increase in the cities than the country as a whole, because of higher birth rates and lower death rates among the relatively youth- ful urban population, together with the effects of improved sanitation and health care. By the early 1960s the indications were that birth rates were at about 30 per thousand and death rates about seven per ‘thousand, and it was calculated that, by 1966, natural increase was adding about 65,000 per annum to a total population of 2.7 million, while migration accounted for about as much again (Bahrambeygui, 1977). Preliminary results of the 1976 National Census of Population and Housing, based on a five per cent sample, are compared with those Tehran 161 ‘Table 5.2: Population of Tehran by Place of Birth, 1956, 1966, 1976, and by Sex Ratio 195619661976 _-Sex tio, 1976 (males pot 100 females) BorninTehran(%) $00 S548 103.3 Born in central province, but outside Tehran(%) 46 1339s 1166 Born in other provinces () 89 346 339 1238 Born in foreign country (%) 1s 10 47 998.2 Total population 1,512,082 2,719,730 4,591,485 Total sex ratio. (males per 100 females) 22 1103 AML ‘Sources: a, Plan Organisation (1966), Vol. 10, Telvan Shahrestan b, Plan and Budget Organisation (1976), Five Per Cent Sample, Tehran Shahrestan from the earliest censuses in Table 5.2. A number of points should be noted. Firstly, some 45 per cent of the city’s population, of all ages, ‘was bom outside the city; over one-third of the population was born in ‘an Ostan, or province, other than the Central Province where Tehran is located; in absolute numbers, this is over 1.5 million people; among. native-born Iranians there is a preponderance of males, particularly in the immigrant groups. The 1976 census also showed that some eight per cent of the resident male population of five years of age or more had migrated from other provinces to the city only within the previous five years A statistical study of nondependent migrants in Tehran between 1956 and 1966 indicated that 17 per cent were seeking a better job and ‘5.2 per cent came for education purposes, but that a total of 72 per cent were either searching for work or better work. Higher wages, more than double those of similar labourers in other parts of the country, were a strong incentive. Marriage was the motive for eleven per cent of ‘the 235,000 migrants studied. Arranged marriages, where former ‘migrants returned to Tehran with their wives after going to their home village or town to marry, were the most common (Bahrambeygui, 1977). But not all those seeking work find it. The official census of 1976 gave an overall unemployment rate of three per cent of those