Evaluation of Contemporary Social Housing in Meeting the Demand of the Deprived Households and Filling the Gap of the Housing Market During the Last Decade in Tehran, Iran

This research aims to scrutinize the achievement of contemporary social housing programs in meeting the demand of the low-income households during the previous decade in Tehran, Iran; and to evaluate the impacts of these programs on the social and spatial order in the Tehran metropolitan area.

This research theoretically attends to the long-established debate about the nature of social housing (policy). Does it primarily accommodate the least well off in society, those for whom the regular (housing) market never provides decent affordable housing? Or is its ambition to provide subsidized homes for the rather (lower)middle class, who were described as key workers?

In a market-based economy, housing is normally provided in commodified rather than de-commodified forms. Market failure justifies government intervention in the housing market, possibly by providing or financing social housing. Subsequently tools for large-scale, state subsidized (de-commodified) and politically controlled intervention in the housing market are developed. For instance, in early 2000s, to confront the market failure, the Iranian government decided to massively build social housing. Providing 

evidences from metropolitan area of Tehran, this research aims to understand whether the construction of social housing aggravates the social-spatial segregation of the city, or not.

Since early 2000s, in many countries, there has been a revival of interest in providing social housing as a way whereby governments can meet the overall accelerating housing demand that stems from demographic change and income pressures. However, in the Global South, where strictly targeted subsidies mostly lead to residualization, the issue of segregation is a serious concern. As a generic model, the housing system in Iran has promoted an unhindered profit (rental) market. It has left the land and property price to the free market. This has led not only to a growth in owner occupation but also to unaffordable price rises for the lower income classes, resulting in the adoption of residual measures in social housing provision. This research focuses on socio-spatial segregation impact of contemporary social housing provision in Iran.

In the existing situation, owing to the historic dominance of free-market dynamics and according policy, the big cities (metropolises) in Iran are socially and spatially segregated. The metropolitan area of Tehran is distinctly polarized between the wealthy (northern) districts and the deprived (southern/peripheral) districts. Virtually one-fourth of all population settled in the Tehran metropolitan area cannot afford a dwelling in the formal housing market and perforce settles in substandard and slum-like peripherally informal neighborhoods.

Tackling the failure of commodified housing market during the last decade, the State has initiated massive construction of social housing (overall 2.5m dwelling units in country, 400,000 of which built in Tehran metropolitan area) to mitigate social injustice, deprivation and poverty, and to provide de-commodified and affordable housing for the deprived households. However, to which extent these ambitions were met is controversial. Especially uncertain is the way how this massive construction has reshaped the socio- spatial pattern of Tehran and has alleviated or aggravated the level of segregation and whether the city has moved toward justice, or not.

This doctoral research aims to evaluate the proliferation of social housing in Iran during the last decade. Providing evidence of the metropolitan area of Tehran, thematically, it is to investigate the role of social housing in changing socio-spatial pattern of the city. To accomplish this purpose four tasks are conducted chronologically, (a) the comprehensive review of the (social) housing system theories focusing on the appropriation of the approach in the Global South, (b) the study of the housing system in Iran to recognize the relation between agencies, structure, institutions and discourse, (c) the assessment of the contemporary social housing in Tehran, and (d) finally proposing prospective policies.

Accordingly, the main objective of the research is:

To understand in what ways the proliferative construction of social housing during the last decade in Tehran metropolitan area has met the demand for the deprived households to combat concentration of urban poverty and social inequity; and how it has changed the pattern of social and spatial segregation across the Metropolitan area.