The Role of Government in Spatial Organization of the City: The 22nd District of Tehran Revisited

In peripheral countries as Iran, the government with its domineering structure and dominance over resources has an extremely effective role on all aspects of the society, economy, politics, and culture. This has affected the spatial organization of the cities. This paper aims to analyze the nature of the government according to Neo-Patrimonial theory as a way to understand and describe the why and how of its intervention in the spatial organization of the city. Sultanism and Neo-Patrimonial theory studies the patron and client relationship through grant on the one side and loyalty at the other. This paper maps the changes in the gifts granted by the patron from agricultural to urban lands. The high value added of the urban lands is a privilege granted by the patron (government) to the clients, where the client answers by a free and unchallenged political legitimacy, thus the whole system of social organization continues to live and rejuvenate itself. Then we would focus on the nature of the relationship between the State and its people.