Neoliberal Urbanization and Informal Settlements: Housing and the Politics of the Poor in the Suburb of Tehran

Neoliberal policies have changed the urban realities in the informal settlements of the impoverished in Iran, affecting the struggles of the lower classes to provide and improve housing. However, scholars in the great majority of urban studies, without considering the broader context of political economy, use conventional conceptual tools that are insufficient for comprehending the dynamic and complicated lives of the poor in these settlements.  These studies are largely silent on how the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programs via new urban policies such as privatization of public properties, price liberalization, and deregulation may result in significant changes in informal settlements and, as a result, in the housing practices of subaltern residents in these areas. This study, which focuses on one of the post-liberalization periods (2011-2013), addresses the central question of how the informal housing politics of Iran's urban poor have changed following the Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment. This research’s theoretical starting point is the quiet encroachment of the ordinary, which has been rethought in light of its findings
Using a qualitative research design, the poor communities of the cities of Golestan and Nasim­ Shahr in the suburbs of Tehran are the primary focus of this study. Observation, personal interviews (with ordinary people, officials of urban organizations, and local informants), and document review (people’s letters to authorities, archives of local and national newspapers, administrative correspondence, official reports, and journals and books) were used to generate and collect data.
The findings of this research indicate that the increasing marketization of the informal realms has significantly prevented the impoverished from illegally acquiring the resources, facilities, and opportunities necessary for constructing shelter or has made achieving this objective costly and difficult. The substantial shift in the disenfranchised’s strategy from horizontal encroachment on lands to vertical encroachment on homes, as well as the expansion of tenancy in the deprived and marginalized settlements, are indicative of this reality. Even in remote areas, the pervasive presence of market forces throughout the socio-spatial configuration may aid state surveillance apparatuses and prevent the occupation of uncontrolled holes by impoverished people. According to the evidence, there is a significant population of poor tenants in deprived villages, where it is easier to violate the law to seize land and construct housing.
Under neoliberal policies, “informal” or marginal areas, which Bayat views as a potential alternative to enduring the hardships of the modern world, have increasingly become a battleground for the incursion of disempowering market forces.