6 - The Highway

Summary

In Chapter 6, I offer a narrative of how Tehran, as both a physical reality and a conceptual entity, captures the imagination of its residents. The chapter is organized around two emerging cities. The first is a material city that is sometimes admired as “modern,” “developed,” or “comparable to other modern capitals,” and sometimes criticized as “a betrayal of Tehran’s history,” “superficial,” “fake,” “a parody of other cities, with no authenticity.” I explore a second emerging city, a perceptual Tehran, through the narratives that engage with the city as a symbolic entity. Through these expressions, I lay out how Tehran is perceived by its residents, showing that identifying with the city is common and that place identities are more influenced by a sense of belonging to the city than to specific neighborhoods. Furthermore, Tehran has become a new source of inspiration for an unprecedented number of artworks and literature in recent years. Accordingly, while the chapter explores perceptions of the city through narratives of its residents, it also draws on examples of works of art and literature to examine how the city is reproduced and, thus, remembered and celebrated.