Marginalization of the urban poor and the expansion of the spontaneous settlements on the Tehran metropolitan fringe

This paper examines the demographic process of spontaneous settlements expansion, the income and employment characteristics of the households, and the dominant land and housing tenure types of spontaneous settlements on the Tehran metropolitan fringe. The study finds that intra-metropolitan and not rural-to-urban migration is dominant. The majority of the households surveyed are low-income, long-term urban dwellers who could not acquire land or housing within the formal markets and are forced to move to informal settlements on the fringe. Most had only one income earner, the vast majority of them male. Workers are mostly engaged in informal economic activities. Land and housing ownership, under an informal arrangement called the “Promissory Note”, is the predominant tenure type. The study concludes that public policies, including the urban planning system, land and housing policies are the main causes for the formation and expansion of the spontaneous settlements on the fringe.