Today, I was just moving around in UM library, and I found a book entitled: Community Studies. The book edited by Colin Bell and Howard Newby was first published in 1971. The book opens discussions on community that "was thought to be a good thing", however "its passing was to be deplored, feared and regretted." The author continues to find community position within the whole literature of eighteen to twentieth century. When reading that, I was thinking why we have not tried to look carefully at our notion of "mahaleh" in our own Iranian culture; a notion that now Tehran Municipality is trying to revive. About 130 years ago, Tehran had only five major mahaleh; now Tehran has been divided into 374 mahaleh.
In Mahaleh, the concept of neighborhood is so powerful. Mahaleh can be somehow a community, in which people are connected since they are living together. Ham-Mahaleh-ee, or the person who is living in the same mahaleh, is a powerful notion. Mahaleh could create a social identity, which may motivate people living in one mahaleh to help each other, to work for their own mahaleh. Mahaleh had a name; when somebody was asked where he/she had been born, you might hear he/she referred to the name of mahaleh. Now, reference to a mahaleh in responding to the place of birth has been forgot, since Tehran has really become a big city.
