Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:15:41.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Urban Change in Iran, 1920–1941

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Eckart Ehlers  and
Willem Floor
Eckart Ehlers
Affiliation:
University of Bonn
Willem Floor
Affiliation:
World Bank
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Introduction

The reforms initiated by Reza Shah's urban modernization drive led to changes not only in cultural patterns of urban life in Iran and the economic structure of the country, but even in spatial organization. The full effect of these initiatives only started to be felt under Mohammad Reza Shah, who continued to pursue the policy of his predecessor. For our specific purpose—urban change under Reza Shah—we will focus on an analysis of the development of the Iranian city, specifically the following three aspects: spatial reorganization; economic changes; and consequences of urban change.

Our basic assumption is that the city, unlike any other phenomenon, became the symbol of political and socioeconomic transformation in Iran and that, to this day, it has preserved this character of Pahlavi modernization and change like no other institution or phenomenon.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3-4 , Summer Fall 1993 , pp. 251 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. U.K. Government (Geographical Series, Naval Intelligence), Persia Handbook (London, 1945), 350Google Scholar.

2. General Staff, India, Military Report on Persia, vol. 4, pt. 2: Fars, Gulf, Ports, Yazd and Laristan (Simla, 1922; 1923/24), 56.

3. Hesse, F., Persien: Entwicklung und Gegenwart (Berlin, 1932), 40Google Scholar.

4. Bharier, J., Economic Development in Iran, 1900–1970 (London, 1971), 27–8Google Scholar.

5. Ibid.

6. Floor, W., Industrialization in Iran, 1900–1941 (Durham, 1984), 26–9Google Scholar.

7. General Staff, India, Military Report on Persia, vol 1, 1930 (Calcutta: Gov't of India Press, 1931), 30.

8. Momeni, M., Malayer und sein Umland: Entwicklung, Struktur und Funktuonen einer Kleinstadt in Iran (Marburg, 1976), 58–9Google Scholar.

9. On this subject see Mina Marefat, “Building to Power: Architecture of Tehran, 1921–1941” (unpublished dissertation, M.I.T., 1988).

10. Byron, R., The Road to Oxiania (London, 1937), 203Google Scholar.

11. English, P. W., City and Village in Iran (Madison, 1966), 39Google Scholar.

12. Keyhan, M., Joghrāfī-ye mofaṣṣal-e Irān, 3 vols. (Tehran, 1311 Sh./1932), 2:236Google Scholar.

13. Momeni, Malayer, 57–8Google Scholar.

14. Bahrambeygui, H., Tehran: An Urban Analysis (Tehran, 1977), 191Google Scholar.

15. Wegener, W., Syrien, Irak, Iran (Leipzig, 1943), 61Google Scholar.

16. Simmonds, S., Economic Conditions in Iran (Persia) (London, 1935), 37Google Scholar; see also Wilber, D., Riza Shah Pahlavi: The Resurrection and Reconstruction of Iran, 1878–1944 (New York, 1975), 195Google Scholar.

17. Ibid.

18. Wegener, Syrien, Irak, Iran, 61Google Scholar.

19. Overseas Consultants, Inc., Report on Seven Year Development Plan for the Plan Organization of the Imperial Government of Iran, 5 vols. (New York, 1949), 3:226.

20. City of Tehran, Dovvomīn sālnāmeh, 115–16.

21. For details of Tehran's water supply see Rieben, E. H., “The Geology of the Tehran Plain,” American Journal of Science 253 (1953): 617–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. For British urban planning in India see Smailes, A. E., “The Indian City: A Descriptive Model,” Geographische Festschrift 57 (1969): 177–90Google Scholar; for French planning in Morocco see Dethier, J., “Evolution of Concepts of Housing, Urbanism and Country Planning in a Developing Country: Morocco, 1900–1972,” in Brown, L. C., ed.. From Madina to Metropolis (Princeton, 1973), 197–243Google Scholar.

23. Ahrens, P. G., Die Entwicklung der Stadt Teheran: Eine staedtebauliche Untersuchung ihrer zukuenfligen Gestaltung (Opladen, 1966), 46–9Google Scholar.

24. See Momeni, Malayer, 79–91; Rist, B., Die Stadt Zabol: Zur wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Entwicklung einer Kleinstadt in Ost-Iran (Marburg, 1981), 59–128Google Scholar. For Tehran see Bobek, H., Teheran: Schlernschriften 190 (Innsbruck, 1958), 5–24Google Scholar.

25. Examples of towns developed in conjunction with the growth of the oil company are: Abadan, Agha Jari, Ahvaz, Bandar Mahshar, Haft-Gel, Masjed-e Solayman and Qasr-e Shirin. See Bharier, Economic Development, 28.

26. Scharlau, K., “Moderne Umgestaltungen im Grundriβ iranisches Städte,” Erdkunde 15 (1961): 183 (Fig. 2)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. Byron, The Road to Oxiania, 83Google Scholar. Also see Rist, Stadt Zabol, 59–66Google Scholar.

28. Gabriel, A., Durch Persiens Osten (Stuttgart, 1935), 156Google Scholar.

29. For Bam see Ehlers, E., “Die Stadt Bam und ihr Oasen-Umland/Zentraliran,” Erdkunde 29 (1975): 38–52Google Scholar; for Sirjan see Rist, B., “Die Stadt Sirjan und ihr Hinterland,” in Ehlers, E., ed., Beitraege zur Kulturgeographie des islamischen Orients (Marburg: Marburger Geographische Schriften, 1979), 111–39Google Scholar; for Tabas see Ehlers, E., “City and Hinterland in Iran: The Example of Tabas/Khorassan,” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 5 (1977): 284–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Zabol see Rist, Stadt Zabol, 59–66Google Scholar.

30. See Wirth, E., “Strukturwandlungen und Entwicklungstendenzen der orientalischen Stadt—Versuch eines Ueberblicks,” Erdkunde 22 (1968): 101–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar; more recently see Ehlers, E., “Die Stadt des islamischen Orients: Modell und Wirklichkeit,” Geographische Rundschau 45 (1993): 32–9Google Scholar.

31. Simmonds, Economic Conditions, 37Google Scholar.

32. See Momeni, Malayer, 55–6Google Scholar, 144–6; Rist, Stadt Zabol, 93–103Google Scholar.

33. Floor, Industry, 5Google Scholar.

34. Byron, Road to Oxiania, 225Google Scholar. This was a slow process, however. In 1933, the town of Salehabad, which had suddenly grown as a result of being at the temporary northern railhead of the trans-Iranian railway resembled “in all respects, in the ramshackle character of its hastily built wooden buildings and in its broad unpaved streets, a Western American mining town of the nineteenth century. Italians, Germans, Russians, Danes, Swedes and French in their rough working customs elbow their cousins, the Persian descendants of the Medes, in the streets or play snooker in the poolroom of the fourth-class hotel of the town” (Filmer, H., The Pageant of Persia [New York, 1936], 45)Google Scholar.

35. Overseas Consultants, Report 3:227.

36. For the situation in Tehran, see Floor, W., Labor Unions, Law and Conditions in Iran (1900–1941) (Durham, 1985)Google Scholar.

37. See Bill, J. A., The Politics of Iran: Groups, Classes and Modernization (Columbus, 1972), 6–15Google Scholar.

38. See Floor, Industrialization, 27Google Scholar.

39. Seger, M., Teheran: Eine stadtgeographische Studie (Vienna and New York, 1978), 15–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 125–41, 170–93.

40. Scharlau, “Moderne Umgestaltungen,” 189Google Scholar.

41. Overseas Consultants, Report 3:224.

42. City of Tehran, Dovvomīn sālnāmeh, 127–8.

43. Haas, W. S., Iran (New York, 1946), 189Google Scholar.

44. Seger, M., “Strukturelemente und das Modell der modernen orientalischen Stadt,” Erdkunde 29 (1975): 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.