Urban Spatial Organization and Social Justice; An Interdisciplinary Study on the Spacial Justice and Physical Distribution of the City of Yazd in the Qajar Period

Abstract
One of the latest issues in the social justice issue is spatial justice in cities. The level of access to public space and urban services and the effects of this on the mental space of citizens is the focus of this paper discussion. The concept of justice in Islam is a fundamental concept whose evaluation from the perspective of spatial justice in Islamic cities can greatly contribute to epistemological development on the one hand and urban policymaking on the other hand. The aim of the current research is to evaluate spatial justice in a part of the historical context of Yazd city (as a global city) during the Qajar period. The focus of Roshi’s departure is to evaluate the access level of two groups of nobles and ordinary people to three forms of urban facilities, i.e. mosque, reservoir and market. Analysis was done using architectural and archeological evidence in Golchinan neighborhood of Yazd, as well as the results obtained from the geographic information system. The results showed that social and economic class had an impact on the spatial organization of neighborhoods. The aristocracy has settled in a position where they can benefit the most or the best from the city’s facilities. From the point of view of justice, this finding is a place for criticism. Despite this, it seems that people’s social interactions were not based on class conflict or the perception of social inequality. Unlike the modern city, although the traditional Islamic city has an unequal distribution of facilities, it seems that compared to modern societies, this unequal distribution does not have a significant effect on the perception of inequality. The researchers are of the opinion that the non-segregated spatial organization, high class interactive action, and Islamic concepts have greatly helped to reduce the perception of inequality among citizens.
Keywords: Spatial Justice, City, Islam, Yazd, Qajar.
 
Introduction
Yazd is one of the rare Islamic cities of Iran in which that the historical tissue is preserved very well. This is a place where the intactness of the Qajar’s structure is vivid enough to facilitate historical interpretations. Due to factors, including suitable geographical location, development of productive activities and export of industrial products, relative security, and the presence of Zoroastrian businessmen, Yazd has been one of the most prosperous business cities of Iran in that period . This prosperity was due to some factors including suitable geographical location, development of productive activities and export of industrial products, relative security, and the presence of Zoroastrian businessmen. Moreover, a major part of the city population was employed as workers in activities such as growing fruits, groceries, garments, handicrafts, and carpet weaving. Some were also engaged in commercial activities. As a result, the historical tissue of the city presently consists of both ordinary and aristocratic houses.  Some studies, such as Tavassoli (1981) and Samizay (2012), suggest that rich and ordinary families used to live together side by side in different districts of Yazd. Khademzadeh (2007), in the study of the formation of Yazd city in different historical periods, argues that affluent and ordinary people used to live together in different districts during the Qajarian dynasty
Since little attention has been paid to the adjacency of ordinary and aristocratic houses and the differences in accessibility of everyday life facilities for different social classes inside a neighborhood, the present study investigates access to the facilities in a neighborhood of an Islamic city from a spatial perspective. For this purpose, Golchinan district is selected. Through the reconstruction of the spatial entity and social structure of the city in this case study, Golchinan district is found among the few historical neighborhoods that are still vividly active. On this basis, the study seeks to answer the following two questions: Is it possible to trace class divisions and the hierarchy of social classes within the spatial organization of the districts? Despite the adjacency of rich and ordinary people in the Islamic cities’ quarters, was there any difference between them in terms of their access to religious, economic and environmental facilities? Thus, to gain a better understanding of the socio-economic differences in the neighborhood, an attempt is made to analyze the access of the aristocratic and ordinary houses in Golchian neighborhood to important daily life facilities such as mosques, markets, and cisterns.
 
Identified Traces
The access of ordinary and aristocratic houses to some facilities and services such as cisterns, mosques, and bazaars forms the foundation of the analyses in this study. The importance of these facilities lies in the fact that, during the Qajar era, people commuted to these places every day, and easy access was considered as a social privilege. Even a closer distance of 30 to 40m could be significant considering the small area of the district, lack of motor vehicles, and the social life of people, as, for instance, aristocratic people needed to access bazaar, mosque, and cistern several times a day. The mosque was a place of worship for them, where they attended at least three to five times a day. The bazaar was their workplace, and they had to walk the distance between work and home several times a day. Moreover, due to the warm weather and a large number of people who were living in the aristocratic houses, they had to constantly go to the cistern to supply the cold water. Therefore, people were constantly commuting between home and the work, mosque, or cistern location, and, as a consequence, walking a shorter distance was an advantage. To differentiate aristocratic houses from ordinary ones, some factors such as the area of the houses, the number and area of their courtyards, the size of the howz3 and the wind catchers, the type of portals, and the kind of decorations were taken into account. To measure the access of the aristocratic and ordinary houses to the neighborhood services and facilities, a spatial data analysis method was used in the Geographical Information System (GIS). GIS, which presents a powerful collection of tools for analyzing spatial data, has been used in a number of studies about spatial archaeology.
 
Conclusion
The spatial organization and layout of cities are generally affected by different economic, social, and environmental factors. An analysis of these layouts can easily reveal the roles and effects of such factors on urban spatial organizations. This study was an attempt to assess the spatial organization of Golchinan district in terms of the accessibility of urban facilities for socio-economic groups during the Qajar era. The results showed that, in spite of the elimination of many socioeconomic hierarchies and the living of ordinary and aristocratic people next to each other after Islam, their accessibility to urban facilities had not been equal. Easy access and proximity to some frequently required urban facilities was associated with some advantages and disadvantages which people would take into consideration when selecting their place of residence. In fact, one can see a sort of class arrangement influenced by economic factors in the spatial organization of the district. Drawing on these findings, it can be concluded that economic factors played a leading role in the spatial organization of Golchinan district during the Qajar period. In fact, due to a higher power, the wealthy class benefited from a series of economic, social, and spatial advantages that the ordinary people were deprived of them.