Urban Speculation and Spatial Segregation (Analysis of Spatial Evolution of Tehran Metropolis in the Context of Oil-Based Economy)

The concept of space is one of controversial subjects in various sciences including geography, urban planning and designing. In order to explain and clarify space different concepts and approaches have been formed during recent decades that discussion around power element (politics) is the significant one. In the following, critical debates such as political economy of space have been introduced analyzing the field by space generalization of radical approach of political economy (criticism of capitalism relations in the field of space). Consequently, in order to apply the political economy of space approach with countries which have oil-based economy, space elements derived from capitalist system such as speculations in production of space and as a result, urban segregations have been studied in Tehran metropolis.
The main question of the research is that “how spatial evolution of Tehran is affected by liberalism relations caused by oil-based economy? The research is intended to investigate spatial evolutions of metropolises of countries relied on oil economics under capitalist system relations. So, the descriptive-analytic method will be used.
The case study is Tehran metropolis and data are derived from library and secondary data resources; analysis tools are regression tests and trend lines analysis. Results represent that indexes including “number of empty residential units out of whole residential units of regions”, “construction infractions”, “building permits issued for higher than 500 square meters” and “construction density” with confidence level of 99%, 98%, 99.8% and 99.5% respectively, have an extensible relation with land price factor which confirms the existence of speculation and rent-seeking trends in construction activities. On the other hand, angle coefficient of 2195 and 1133.8 for changes in prices of residential lands in north and south regions respectively during last three decades also proves segregation between north and south of Tehran.