The influence of metro station development on neighbourhood quality: The case of Tehran metro rail system

Abstract

Introducing urban public transportation facilities into a region often creates a significant opportunity to accelerate the process of development through affecting on the property values. Better access, more mobility options, and lower transportation costs are important factors that increase the land values of such regions, especially in blighted and poor neighbourhoods. This issue is important in Tehran Metropolis, because during the past decades an obvious kind of spatial segregation has been formed between the rich north (with high spatial quality) and the poor south (with low spatial quality) due to unequal distribution of opportunities and resources. On the other side, according to the population demand, Metro System is being developed rapidly in the city. Thus a comparative field study on the impacts of metro stations on property values in Tehran can represent not only the various impacts of metro station establishing on different urban textures, but also its consequences on reducing the spatial segregation in the city. We presume that the poor areas under discussion (southern regions) have received more benefits than the rich areas in terms of residential property values. So, establishing of metro stations in the poor and blighted regions of the city can improve the development potentials at these areas. Such improvement in spatial quality of the southern neighbourhoods of the city can reduce the spatial segregation in Tehran Metropolis. The hypothesis has been tested with a field study around Shari'ati Street Metro Station (in the northern part of Tehran) and Shohada Square Metro Station (in the southern part) with considering the quantitative (polynomial regression) and qualitative (personal interview) methods of impact assessment. The results show that establishing of metro stations has a consistently higher positive impact on the residential property values at the poor regions compared with the rich areas. Therefore, by means of acceleration in the values of the poor southern regions, Tehran's long-standing segregation will gradually diminish and subsequently the spatial urban integration will show itself, though in a rather long time.