Spatial segregation in metropolis: an analysis of social geography of Tehran metropolis

Spatial segregation in most metropolises is widely interesting issue because of their potential to foster segregation process and because of globalization impact to reinforce it. Goal of this paper is to study spatial patterns of segregation in Tehran metropolis. To examine segregation indices, we use three indices including two-group spatial segregation index, multi-group spatial segregation index and deviational ellipses respectively. The variables used for analysis from 2006 national census made by Statistics Centre of Iran and are organized in eight variables including: occupation, literacy, quality of home, area of house, family dimension, headship age, religion and ethnic status. Results show although different among variables, spatial segregation exists in Tehran. Compared with other variables, Religion and ethnicity have higher level, respectively, of two-group and multi-group spatial segregation. Despite spatial assimilation theory, religion exhibits more clustered pattern than ethnicity. Standard deviation ellipse indicates Tehran has strongly dual structure according to area of house. Also, unlike the discussed theories, increase in family size do not accompany increase in Area of house, then, sizable houses are occupied by married-couple households with few children and tend to move to North parts of the metropolis and married-couple households with more children has been deprived of ample houses and located in Northern Tehran.