Contested Land Regimes and Urban Transformation in Post-Revolutionary Tehran

The 1979 Iranian Revolution radically reconfigured property rights, land tenure, and institutional structures, disrupting a complex historical framework shaped by Islamic jurisprudence and Waqf, 20th-century land reforms, and customary land practices. Post-revolutionary land confiscations—primarily from the aristocracy and industrial elite—placed vast assets under the control of revolutionary charitable organisations, with the declared aim of redistributing wealth in line with Islamic principles of social justice. However, this transformation produced lasting ambiguities and tensions within Iran’s land tenure system.

While initially aimed at increasing land access for lower-income groups by reducing land prices, weak regulatory frameworks and erratic implementation hindered long-term infrastructural planning. Revolutionary goals of equity and distributive justice gradually shifted towards neoliberal entrepreneurialism, as charitable organisations became influential economic actors, engaging in speculative real estate activities in partnership with municipal authorities and other state and non-state actors. The persistent effects of competing land claims, overlapping legal regimes, and fragmented ownership patterns emerge as critical, yet underexplored, factors in Tehran’s contemporary urban challenges. These include unchecked urban sprawl, environmental degradation, and infrastructural deficiencies, exacerbated by conflicting claims over land and tenure, leading to delayed or contested urban projects.

The interplay of revolutionary ideals, neoliberal shifts, and entrenched land politics remains central to understanding Tehran’s ongoing urban dilemmas. This presentation examines the origins and evolution of institutional arrangements related to land ownership through case studies of urban land conflicts in Tehran. It analyses the rationale behind the revolutionary policies on property and land rights, evaluates the outcomes of these institutional changes, and explores the agency of various actors in shaping property rights institutions. More importantly, the presentation traces the implications of institutionalised and customary land tenure, along with religious claims over land, on current urban and peri-urban development patterns in Tehran, particularly in developments that straddle the formal-informal threshold.