Document Type : Research Article
Author
Assistant Professor of History, National library and Archives of Iran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
From the 1960s, squatter and informal settlements became one of the social problems of large cities, especially Tehran, due to the expansion of internal migration. Initially, the demolition of slums was the only planned policy of the government in the face of this social problem. Following the failure of these measures, an attempt was made to overcome this problem by building housing for slum dwellers. The construction of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban in 1965 for the slum dwellers was a considerable action of the government in the face of this problem in Tehran. However, shortly after the construction of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban, almost seventy percent of the slum dwellers had left these homes in the early 1970s. Despite the urgent need for adequate shelter, the question of the present article is why the residents of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban left their homes? The claim of the present article is that the incompatibility of these houses with the ways of earning their livelihood was the main reason for leaving the Kooy-e nohom-e aban. Therefore, the construction and housing of slum dwellers in the Kooy-e nohom-e aban was described first. Then the social and economic characteristics of its inhabitants were assessed. Finally, an attempt was made to reveal why the slum dwellers left the houses of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban.
Keywords
Main Subjects
Extended Abstract
Social housing and Immigrant squatters: ،The construction of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban in 1960s
The spread of slums and informal settlements in Tehran in the mid-1960s, and the failure of slums demolition policies for reduction of slums have led the government to overcome this problem in other ways by building housing for slums in Tehran. The construction of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban in 1965 for slum dwellers in Tehran was the most significant action of the government in this regard. Between 1965 and 1969, the slum dwellers of the affluent areas of Tehran were transferred to this residential alley. However, in the early 1970s, most residents of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban left their new homes and returned to the slums. In other words, the plan had practically failed. Despite the urgent need for adequate shelter, the question of the present article is why the residents of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban left their homes?
According to the above preliminaries, we try to first explain how the Kooy-e nohom-e aban were built and how slum dwellers were settled in Kooy-e nohom-e aban. Then the social and economic characteristics of the residents of the alley were evaluated and finally an attempt was made to show why the slum dwellers left the houses of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban.
It should be noted that although this residential alley has been the subject of several sociological researches due to some social necessities, the historical background of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban has not been considered and the authors of this research have limited themselves to general references in this regard and its historical aspect has been neglected. Regarding the research methodology, it should be said that the lack of documents about the behavior and attitudes of Subaltern groups in the past is the most important obstacle to such research. Therefore, considering this issue, the reconstruction of the behavior and attitudes of the residents of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban in this article is based on a demographic approach to social history. Indeed, in social history, when available resources and documents do not allow us to reconstruct the behavior and attitudes Subaltern groups individually, the alternative strategy is to reconstruct their behavior as a group through the use of demographic data that has been collected quantitively.
Furthermore, by examining the reports and documents left by the residents of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban, it is shown that the main reason for the failure of the project was due to the economic situation of the residents. During the accommodation of the residents in the Kooy-e nohom-e aban, the only job opportunity provided for the residents of the Alley was the small number of shops that the Housing Organization was supposed to hand over to some shopkeepers in Hasirabad, whose shops had been destroyed along with the slum dwellers' slums.
Therefore, there was no place to work in this alley, and people had to look for work in institutions in the city. Most of the slum dwellers were engaged in various seasonal jobs before settling in the Kooy-e nohom-e aban. But their seasonal occupations, which were the main source of livelihood for themselves and their families, were closely linked to their place of residence, and the existence of these job opportunities depended on their living next to the affluent.
On the one hand, this possibility had disappeared for them in their new place of residence due to the long distance between the Kooy-e nohom-e aban and those areas. On the other hand, their new life had faced new costs such as water, electricity, housing installments, municipal tolls, and transportation costs, which were beyond their means. The number of unemployed women, who mostly served in the surrounding houses, also increased mainly due to the distance to the northern parts of the city (distance between 12 and 16 km). In addition to the problems and difficulties such as protecting children in the absence of the mother, paying eight to twelve rials for transportation and spending about three hours in this case limited the possibility of women moving to the north of the city, and this had a severe impact on the family economy. Therefore, most of the first residents of the Kooy-e nohom-e aban, who were among the poorest people in the community, sold their houses at a higher price, spent it on more urgent needs, and returned to the slums to continue their lives based on the initiatives they found to earn a living in city.
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