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Earthquakes and poverty in Tehran

Maryam Amiri, Tehran Community Manager

Tehran, 8 December 2015

Tehran is associated with many environmental threats, such as drought and air pollution. But one of the most dangerous challenges are earthquakes. We are faced with increasing incidences of natural disasters due to climate change around the world, and as a result, there is a major concern for the accident-prone country of Iran and Tehran city.

Tehran, with a population of about eight million people, is located in the “Integrated Seismic Hazard Mapping,” according to the “Seismic Hazard Zonation Mapping” of the country. However, the latest studies in this area date back to 20 years ago. This study predicts that there is a possibility of deaths of 400,000 people were an earthquake to hit Tehran.

Earthquake damage to this city will not be the same everywhere. Places of residence are quite distinct for various social and income classes in Tehran. Generally speaking, the rich live in the north of the city, and low-income groups are settling in the south. This social segregation becomes more entrenched every day. Accordingly, houses in the south of Tehran have the least possible resistance against disaster, and may readily collapse in the event of even a weak earthquake. Also, these areas are highly dense and lack open spaces. Moreover, the road network is commonly non-standard in southern Tehran neighborhoods and the Rescue & Relief forces cannot be present immediately in crisis. These factors lead to the fear that a humanitarian catastrophe may occur in the poor neighbourhoods of Tehran in the event of an earthquake.

This concern prompted the Tehran Municipality in 2005 to investigate deteriorated areas in Tehran. In that year, the Master Plan was approved and a special program was created to address this issue. Next, a formal office was established in each of these neighborhoods (about 50 neighborhoods in total) that would facilitate running programs through interaction with residents and attracting their participation to renovate their homes. Financial incentives, such as mortgage loans, were considered to encourage residents to renovate their houses. But the efforts have been mainly to reduce the population density by creating more open spaces and redesigning houses with very low areas. For example, four houses with lower than 50 square meters are incentivized to convert to a four-floor, 200 square-meter house; if they do, an extra floor is the "gift" of local government, which is often the contribution of the investor.

However, the municipality’s approach is not perfect. First, one of the municipal incentives for renovation and readjustment is granting the residents an additional density and exempting them from the provision of sufficient parking. In fact, this is a violation of the Detailed Design and maintains the density of neighborhoods at high levels. Moreover, receiving renovation loans for residents who are poorer than others and lack the initial conditions for receiving loans are impossible. On the other hand, the new houses being built do not necessarily have the necessary safety standards.

In conclusion, despite public anxiety caused by the great danger that threatens all the inhabitants of Tehran, the concern among the city's poor people is more than others. The municipality’s solutions have not been encouraging so far. Perhaps a short-term solution is to increase the Rescue & Relief equipment in these areas. However, in the long-term, policies that minimize segregation of social classes can minimize environmental threats as well.

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