Tehran's Borderlines
Urban Development and Public Life in Contemporary Iran

A study of how public spaces mediate social relations in Tehran, a developing city in the Middle East.

Jaleh Jalili (Author)

9781009389051, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 February 2025

184 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

Tehran has changed in recent decades. Rapid urban development through the expansion of subway lines, highways, bridges, and tunnels, and the emergence of new public spaces have drastically reshaped the physical spaces of Tehran. As the city changes, so do its citizens, their social relations, and their individual and collective perceptions of urban life, class, and culture. Tehran's Borderlines is about the social relations that are interrupted, facilitated, forged, and transformed through processes of urban development. Focusing on the use of public spaces, this book provides an analysis of urban social relations in the context of broader economic, cultural, and political forces. The book offers a narrative of how public spaces function as manifestations of complex relations among citizens of different backgrounds, between citizens and the state, and between forces that shape the physical realities of spaces and the conceptual meanings that citizens create and assign to them.

1. Introduction: public space and urban life
2. The city: 'the making of a metropolis'
3. The market: inequality and spatial patterns of consumption
4. The street: non-economic inequalities and navigating space
5. The vista: spatial boundaries, self, and others
6. The highway: 'a city of my own'
7. Conclusion: up in the mountains, back to the city
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]