Spatial Justice Perceptions in High-Income and Low-Income Quarters of Tehran, Iran: Case Study of Niavaran and NematAbad Quarters

Residents of northern Tehran are well paid and have better access to urban services, whereas their southern counterparts are paid less and deprived. Land value also differs significantly between the north and south. However, it seems that having more apt objective indicators does not necessarily lead to an enhancement in subjective indices. The hypothesis is that “Justice is not perceived at a higher level among the dwellers of the higher-income quarters of Tehran compared with their counterparts in the lower-income quarters.” To test this hypothesis, we attempted to define the criteria of justice, as perceived by Tehran citizens. According to previous studies, Tehran citizens generally perceive justice through four criteria: reduction of the gap between the poor and rich, government’s assistance to the poor, law enforcement, and absence of corruption. Based on these criteria, justice is evaluated in Niavaran (a high-income quarter in northern Tehran with good access to urban services) and NematAbad (a low-income southern quarter with poor services) via a questionnaire (a randomly selected sample of 200 people). The results show that despite the existing objective differences between the infrastructures, services, and incomes, there is no significant difference between these quarters in terms of the perceived (subjective) justice (based on Mann–Whitney U test). The citizens in both quarters are dissatisfied with the status of all criteria. It is concluded that only physical strategies and enhancement in city services have not been accountable for the promotion and a sense of justice. Thus, the attention of planners should shift from physical indicators to mental indicators.