According to economic reasoning, human error is natural but systematic, repeated mistakes are against the principle of rationality. By extension, it is not strange if governments and organizations adopt a misguided policy, but repeatedly adopting that same wrong policy is questionable. This indicates a systematic lack of organizational understanding, Ali Sarzaeem, an economist, prefaced his write-up for the Persian economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad with this note. A translation of the text follows:
For decades now, housing policymakers have been trying to curb prices without any success. Three wrong policies have been applied in this regard, but none of them has produced the desired result. Nevertheless, the political system continues to pursue them.
The first policy is to keep housing prices down by suppressing the prices of construction materials such as cement, beams and bricks. As the second policy, decision-makers assume that they can manage the housing market by expanding cities and giving construction permits for multistoried buildings. The third policy is to hand over state lands to cooperatives and projects such as Mehr Housing Project.
Housing prices kept rising despite all these efforts. The second policy has also been carried out at different periods. For example, the comprehensive plan of Tehran, which had specified the borders of the city, was shelved and districts 21 and 22 were created during Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf’s mayoralty. City officials believed that the housing problem would be solved then. However, what happened in practice was that inequality in owning housing increased and the quality of urban life declined. The population of cities as well as the pressure on urban infrastructures increased, as the cities expanded and the number of building floors increased.
Heavy traffic, overcrowded buses, subways and parks as well as noise pollution are the repercussions of the chaotic state of urban life in Iran; these are the direct consequences of wrong policies.
Recently, the media reported that city officials have decided to increase the number of floors allowed to be built in large cities with the aim of controlling the soaring housing prices. The thinking behind this idea does not pay attention to the fact that the high price of housing is one of the factors that restrains migration and prevents the exertion of more pressure on the biological resources of a city. As a result, the country turns into dense points in several places when cities expand. This is while the normal and correct model is to allow population to spread evenly throughout the country. Tehran is more than a metropolis now; its population and area match that of a country.
The size and population of Tehran have grown so much that no superman or superwoman is able to manage it; the municipality will never be able to ensure an acceptable quality of life in this city.
Tehran Municipality should not have allowed the construction of multi-storied buildings, if it was eager to solve the problems in the next 40 or 50 years.
Due to the relatively high price of housing in Tehran, the population will gradually move to other cities and Tehran will become a city with a smaller population and better urban facilities. This measure would reduce the incentive to demolish old houses, which is a short-term cost but will bring about benefits in the long run.
