The Reduction of Gardens in Tehran; The Area of Gardens in the Capital Has Decreased to One-Eighth Over Four Decades

On December 20, the newspaper Shargh reported in an analytical piece titled "Garden Reduction" that the area of gardens in Tehran has decreased to one-eighth over the past four decades, stating that Tehran has become a victim of "land monopoly." Previously, terms such as land grabbing, air grabbing, mountain grabbing, and sea grabbing were used by Iranian media to describe corruption, rent-seeking, and mismanagement in the country, and now "garden reduction" has been added to these terms. The report states that the Tehran we live in today bears no resemblance to the city that was once known as the "Garden City." Throughout its history, gardens have been fundamental elements of Tehran's identity. Now, due to decades of mismanagement in legislation, Tehran has turned into a city lacking identity, where not only have its gardens disappeared, but the consequences of widespread destruction have also closed off the city's breathing space. According to the report, in the early 1980s, Tehran had over 14,000 hectares of gardens and wooded areas. The plan for organizing the gardens and agricultural lands of Tehran, conducted in 2010, showed that the area of gardens in Tehran decreased from 14,167 hectares in 1989 to 10,286 hectares in 2002. In other words, 4,200 hectares of Tehran's gardens were lost in just the 1990s. The report further states that this was not the end of the story; in the following years, under the shadow of the comprehensive city plan, which determined urban boundaries and increased the prices of lands within the boundaries, Tehran experienced an even more deplorable situation, effectively serving as a legal document for the destruction of Tehran's gardens. Today, according to the head of the Environment Committee of the Tehran City Council, of the 730 square kilometers of Tehran, only about 1,700 hectares, equivalent to two percent of the city, consists of gardens and wooded areas.