Rentier state urbanization revisited: Oil-time metropolitan development in Tehran, 1970-2020

Project Description

Shahin is a doctoral candidate in Urban Studies under supervision of Prof. Dr. Jon Schubert at the University of Basel. In his research, he revisits the past fifty years of oil-driven, uneven urban development in Tehran Metropolitan Area (the capital city of Iran), with attention to historical depth and contemporary dynamics and challenges. In this research he is aiming to develop a novel critique of ‘rentier state urbanism’ in a broader context and formulate new perspectives for a better understanding of mega-cities and urban growth in comparable, resource-dependent states in the Middle-East and across the Global South.

Supervisor:  Prof. Dr. Jon Schubert

Co-Supervisor:  Prof. Dr. Kenny Cupers


Short Bio

In 2021 he graduated from the M.A. Critical Urbanisms with a thesis on Urban Informality in Switzerland. As a part of his MA program, he spent a semester at the University of Cape Town in which his individual research was namely on unrevealing various interconnections and correlations of urban informality in informal settlements and slum areas. 

Prior to joining Urban Studies group, he studied a BSc. in Urban Studies and Planning, and a MSc. in Regional Planning in Iran. Afterwards, he began working in urban and regional planning career in Iran. His professional experience in numerous municipalities in the Tehran Metropolitan Area, and the Research and Planning Centre at the Municipality of Tehran, allowed him as a young planner to engage with the decision-making process, governing a metropolitan area and the complexity of its policy-making process.

Portrait Image

Shahin Haghinavand
PhD in Urban Studies
Spalenvorstadt 2
4051 Basel

sh.haghinavand@unibas.ch