Revising the Measures of Urban Poverty Delimitation in Qods City: Towards a Common Concept of Slum Areas

In recent decades, urban poverty has increased due to dramatic increase in household and housing costs in Iran. As a manifestation of this trend, sporadic settlements outside the planned developments and formal housing market have been mushroomed, lacking plans for services provision. The urban management often consider them as marginal. Based on statistical data, field sampling and systematic analysis, this paper re-evaluate the ongoing measures for slum delimitation in Qods City (located in Tehran metropolitan region). According to the urban development documents of the city, large percentage of existing residential areas is categorised as dilapidated areas as well as informal settlements. The findings of this study indicate that there are not much differences between these two categories, according to social, economic, physical and environmental criteria which are common in slum definition. In many cases, due to specific characteristics of housing in Qods City which is formed without plan, there is a large overlap between these two categories. On the other hand, based on the existing procedures, two separate documents are prepared for these two which their TORs and commissioned consultants are separate as well. Even the preparation and approval procedures are disconnected and in the case of execution, they will have odd and inefficient results. In addition, due to the absence of an inclusive unitary city plan, the uncoordinated and selective actions are rampant. Therefore, revising the current delimitation criteria for these two categories, considering their common cause of urban predicaments, is necessary. This will lead to one type called slum area which makes unified and coordinated action plans possible.