Right to the City in Spontaneous Settlements Case Study: Sanandaj, Urban Separated Area of Naysar

The right to the city can be considered as one of the human approaches to urban studies that it seeks to rebuild the city as a space designed by all citizens and serving all of them. Fortunately, the right to the city has been able to keep up the path of progress. The right to the city once proposed in the context of the French Revolution and in opposition to the capitalist system; these days it is used as an approach by power and capitalism. In other words, the right to the city has been recognized as an approach of people governance to space and the role of city-based residents in producing and reproducing the present and future space of cities. If spontaneous settlements are consider as marginalizing a part of the city, so the right to the city can have a special look at the issue of spontaneous settlements. This study seeks to investigate the right to the city condition of the Naysar settlement in order to assess the differences of right to the city among variant groups of this part of Sanandaj city.

The present study is an applied one that has been done by the descriptive-analytical method. Documentary and field methods were used to collect the required information. By reviewing the theoretical literature and the research background, dimensions and indicators of research were extracted in six ones including political and civil, managerial, economic, cultural, service and health. Then, the validity of the indicators was confirmed by using of expert’s opinions. Finally, a questionnaire was prepared in the form of Likert spectrum by indexing the indicators. The statistical population of the study consists of Naysar’s where 36431 people live according to the last census of 2016. Based on the Cochran formula (sample size) 381 pre-test questionnaires were distributed among the residents of the study area by a simple random method. Then, One-sample t-test was used for statistical analysis and status analysis of the studied dimensions and One-way analysis of variance was used to examine the relationships between the descriptive factors on the main variable of research (Right to the city).

According to the results of one-way analysis of variance, the right-to-city situation seems more favorable to men than women, and the city is not evenly distributed to marginalized gender groups. The study of income shows that the highest and lowest amount of right to the city belongs to the income groups who have above 6 million Tomans and below 2 million Tomans, respectively. In the survey of right to the city status among the occupational groups, those who employed in the formal sector have a higher average of right to the city. Also, the least amount of right to the city belongs to groups who are searching for a job. In addition, the least amount of right to the city among the age groups belong to above 60 and under 25 and two age groups of 25 to 40 and 40 to 60 years have the highest rate of it. It is worth noting that the guidance school and the academic groups have the highest and lowest amount of right to the city, respectively.

The urban management system may not provide a wide range of different rights to the residents of Naysar, However, it gives the rents or ransoms to its residents that without any doubt include people with better financial status in the area. For example, the wealthy individuals of Naysar have built several illegal and unoccupied housing units; they have been transformed agricultural land uses into housing land illegally; also, they have divided their lands without permission; they are using electricity and water concessions illegally and freely for residential and even non-residential units and in addition, they pay minimal tolls and taxes for various properties. As a result, Naysar only shows lower percentages of right to the city indicators for people who want to live as a citizen. Otherwise, it is a good environment for a group of people with informal citizenship and they receive different unlawful privileges from urban management in various ways.