Welcome to Tales of My Two Cities
Why I've started a blog about urbanism and politics in my two hometowns, New York and Tehran
Welcome to Tales of My Two Cities, a newsletter and blog by Kian Tajbakhsh on cities and politics in the US and Iran.
New York City and Tehran are the largest cities in the United States and Iran, and I claim both as my hometowns. These cities are worlds apart, separated by thousands of miles, shaped by very different histories and civilizational influences, and have vastly different and, sad to say, antagonistic government systems and ideologies. Yet in my mind, every day, the cities run parallel, right next to each other.
I’ve spent a cumulative almost forty years living in New York, all as an adult. In that time, I have worked in community level planning and housing, studied urban politics, lived mostly on the west side of Manhattan, and studied and later taught at Columbia, where I continue to teach, having taught at the New School in between. I also lived a cumulative 30 years in Tehran, about half of them as a child. But as an adult returnee I became deeply engaged in democratic reform politics and the country established democratically elected local councils. I travelled across the country studying how people in cities, towns, and villages used this newly established way of making their voices and interests heard. I taught at the university part time and did my first writings in Persian. I met my wife, and our daughter was born in Tehran.
Now we three live in New York City, far from the city where all of us were born because the government didn’t approve of my work in support of human rights and democracy. You can read about this experience here and here.
As a writer and researcher, my main interest is understanding how politics and urban planning intersect in cities to make urban life work well — or miserably — for ordinary people. And ultimately in how to improve cities as a place where individuals can thrive, economically, socially and even spiritually. Through conversations with colleagues on social media, as well as with friends and family, I continue to participate in very wonky conversations about urban planning, local elections, and all the motivations and obstacles facing individuals who want – or don’t want or can’t be bothered to get involved in – making democracy work in their cities, both in the US and in Iran. There is something concrete about city and neighborhood issues that cuts through the frustrating fog of national and international politics. Because I follow closely what is going on in local politics and neighborhood issues in NYC, I constantly compare and contrast New York and Tehran. I have found some unlikely similarities as well as some expected differences.
For the last few months I have been following events in both cities closely. Both have been preparing to hold local elections this month, Tehran on June 17th and New York on June 22nd. Entries in my notebooks for New York and Tehran, I find, flow into each other — both cities facing some strikingly similar challenges. Should they grow up vertically or out horizontally? Should the government or the market should have the main responsibility for ensuring housing affordability, and how much should residents pay in taxes for city services, what are they unhappy about, what do they want from their municipality, etc?
Writing a blog with this dual lens on two such different cities (and societies) has no justification other than my own personal and, I think, unique exploration of very local matters across these two countries. I will write each post so that Iranians can learn about the challenges facing NY and vice versa. I don’t claim that this can help heal the rift between the two countries. But Americans and Iranians might find it offers an unusual perspective on the similarities and differences of two very different societies that happen to sit side by side in my mind.
This blog is for you if you have an interest in cities, politics, democracy, and urban planning both in Iran and in the US. I will occasionally go farther afield and discuss national politics, and other cities and countries I know something about, like UK, India, Pakistan or China. I will try to report and analyze issues as objectively as possible by drawing on measurable data and evidence as much as possible. I will avoid ideology and partisanship unsupported by evidence, although of course I realize interpretation and value-based judgment is unavoidable. In the next few posts I will dive into the process and results of the local elections in the two cities and what they mean for the future.
If this is what you are interested in, I hope you will follow me and subscribe to this newsletter. Please share with your friends and comment on the posts. You can read more about me and some of my background and publications at my website.