Impact Assessment of Pedestrian Project in Tehran, with focus on the Right to the City Discourse, a Content Analysis Study

By a vast review of the right to the city literature, this paper tries to understand how the right to the city is perceived by citizens of Tehran. To address this question, 15 Khordaad Pedestrian Street is chosen as our case study. This street is located in the center of Tehran and is a historic, multivalued, and multifunctional street in Tehran, attracting thousands of citizens every day which makes this space, a festival of different gender, and social, economic, and religious groups of people and consequently increases inclusiveness of our findings. The main data presented in this paper are derived from semi-structured interviews with 32 participants according to the data saturation level collected as part of a community-based research project. The qualitative data were generated in 2018, seven years after the implementation of the pedestrian project in 15 Khordaad Street in Tehran. Four general questions were asked in all interviews however we were open to any new idea by applicants. Our findings show that democracy, diversity, and equity are the main pillars of the cries and demands of citizens in our case. Moreover, a paradigm shift from urban management to good governance along with employing a more democratic and collaborative urban design approach coupled with a shift from passive dwellers to active citizens are required to increase right to the city in future similar projects.