هر سکه صد میلیون تومان است. خرج کن تا کیسه خالی شود، بعد ببین دیگران کجا گذاشته‌اند.

کیسه

۱۰۰ سکه

۱۰۰ سکه · ۱۰ میلیارد تومان

۱۵۰ نفر پیش از تو تحویل داده‌اند

زمین بازی پشت مدرسه

یک زمین بازی کوچک با کف‌پوش ایمن

۰ سکهٔ تو · دیگران ۱۷

پیاده‌روی خیابان اصلی

پانصد متر کف‌سازی با رمپ

۰ سکهٔ تو · دیگران ۱۴

درخت و آبیاری

صد و پنجاه درخت با دو سال آبیاری

۰ سکهٔ تو · دیگران ۱۴

روشنایی کوچه‌ها

صد چراغ کم‌مصرف روی تیرهای موجود

۰ سکهٔ تو · دیگران ۱۵

سالن مطالعهٔ سرای محله

یک سالن مطالعه با دو هزار کتاب

۰ سکهٔ تو · دیگران ۹

گذرگاه امن و سرعت‌گیر

ده گذرگاه با چراغ و سرعت‌گیر

۰ سکهٔ تو · دیگران ۱۰

بازارچه و جشن محله

دوازده بازارچه یا جشن در سال

۰ سکهٔ تو · دیگران ۶

لوله‌کشی آب کوچهٔ بن‌بست

دویست متر لولهٔ تازه

۰ سکهٔ تو · دیگران ۱۴

Sound · A hundred coins, eight trays

The neighbourhood budget

NextThe gears of diversity

The hidden tax

A hundred coins, four years

The Stanford study calls inflation a hidden tax that parliament and government tolerated for years because it caused no unrest. Take the neighbourhood budget's hundred coins and see how many remain after one four-year council term, at the rates this country has seen.

Inflation rate

Year۴

After ۴ Year · ۲۲٪

۴۵

of ۱۰۰ coins' worth

Who collects this tax? In the paper's words: «the government itself, some privileged special interest groups, and people in the ruling class», the banks' big debtors; and the president appoints and removes the central bank's governor.

This experience's arithmetic: a hundred divided by (one plus the rate) to the power of the years, rounded. The rates from the World Bank series and the central bank's governor; the reading «hidden tax» from the fifth paper of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project (June 2018).

Inflation, thirty-six years، Mehr 1405 · Who appoints and removes the central bank's governor، ۱۴۰۲ · A hundred coins after four years of inflation، ۱۴۰۵

The barrel

A hundred barrels, a hundred tomans

Of every hundred barrels Iran pumps, sixty burn at home. Of the forty exported, a third is not paid for but bartered. Of every hundred tomans of the 1404 budget, thirty-five come from oil. Change the year and see the bartered share.

۶۰ used at home ۲۷ exported and sold ۱۳ exported and bartered

Part of the bartered oil pays for the nuclear programme, the «national surveillance programme», the IRGC intelligence organisation and air defence.

of every hundred tomans of public budget resources, from oil

What is lost on the way

Discount to the buyer13 to 18 percent
Shadow fleet and ship-to-ship transfersat least 9 percent
Bartered goods15 to 20 percent above market

The paper's own arithmetic: if sanctions were lifted tomorrow, about six percent would be added to GDP, once; growth comes from competitive markets and the rule of law.

Domestic use, barter, discounts and fleet costs from the twelfth paper of the Stanford Iran 2040 Project (April 2026); oil's share of the budget from the Majlis Research Center's review of the 1404 bill. Barrels are rounded.

Oil in the 1404 budget، Aban 1403 · Oil: home, export, barter، Farvardin 1405

Home

Of every hundred tomans an urban family spends, how many the house takes

The neighbourhood budget has a hundred coins; an urban family's budget, a hundred tomans. For thirteen years the roof took thirty of them. Now forty-four. Change the year.

۴۴ tomans of a hundred, on housing · Forty-three point seven; a record.

Of every hundred urban households, owners

۶۹ · ۲۳ renters · ۸ the rest in employer housing, rent-free or for service

Housing's share of urban household spending and the owner and renter shares from the Statistical Centre's household survey, 1403, via Tabnak and Faradeed; rounded. The Stanford study also drew empty homes and Tehran land prices; those series are not here because their source is unpublished.

Housing's share of urban household spending، Shahrivar 1404 · Owners and renters، Bahman 1404

Sound · The neighbourhood budget

A hundred coins of a hundred million tomans each, and eight trays. Spend until the purse is empty, then see where the others spent, and why today's neighbourhood council can do none of it.

A hundred coins

A hundred coins of a hundred million tomans each: ten billion tomans. The number comes from no budget line; it is an estimate of what it would be if a tenth of each neighbourhood's development share of its district budget were put to the residents' vote. The Tehran municipality had a budget of about a hundred and fifty thousand billion tomans in 1403, sixty-four percent of it for development; a southern district like District 14 had a thousand billion tomans, and the city has three hundred and fifty-two neighbourhoods.

Eight trays face you, and each builds something with ten coins: a playground, five hundred metres of pavement, a hundred and fifty trees. The prices come from municipal contracts and the market of 1403, rounded. Every coin you put here is not somewhere else; that is what separates this from a poll.

Written by us

Sources

The neighbourhood budget's hundred coins: ten billion tomans: an estimate of a tenth of each neighbourhood's capital share of its district budget (a thousand-billion district, twelve to twenty neighbourhoods, 64 percent capital) — the site's arithmetic on Hamshahri Online's figures, ۱۴۰۳(estimate)
Tehran municipality budget 1403: about 150,000 billion tomans approved (supplement: 185.9 thousand billion); 64 percent capital, 36 percent current — Hamshahri Online, report of the council's budget vote; shahr.ir, Esfand 1402(cited)
Tehran District 14 budget in 1403: a thousand billion tomans (from 560 billion in 1402); District 17: 888 billion — Hamshahri Online, details of the 1403 budget, Esfand 1402(cited)
Playground cost: children's play site in Isfahan's Sofeh park: 1.2 billion tomans; the large playground of Mashhad's Kuhsangi park: 18 billion — IMNA; Shahrara News, ۱۴۰۲(cited)

What exists now: a council without a budget

The neighbourhood councils were created by a resolution of the Tehran city council in Aban 1378: in every neighbourhood seven members and four alternates, directly elected by the residents, advisory and supervisory. The fifth round was held in Tir 1398 for three hundred and fifty-two neighbourhoods, and three thousand five hundred and forty people were elected. The council has no budget; it gives its view, follows up, and the district municipality decides. This experience takes place in a free Iran: a neighbourhood council that really owns these ten billion; today's council shows why it does not exist yet.

What the municipality can spend on is what belongs to it: streets and pavements, parks and trees, lighting, the neighbourhood house, the market, safe crossings. What it cannot: water and sewage (the water company), gas and electricity (their own companies), schools and teachers (the education ministry), clinics (the health ministry). That is why the pipes tray is here: many of a neighbourhood's wishes lie outside the reach of whoever sits at the neighbourhood's ballot box.

From the exhibition

Sources

Neighbourhood council: Tehran city council resolution, 4 Aban 1378; in every neighbourhood 7 members and 4 alternates by direct vote of the residents; advisory and supervisory, no budget — resolution of the Islamic City Council of Tehran, Aban 1378
Tehran's neighbourhoods and the fifth council round: 352 neighbourhoods in 22 districts; fifth round of the neighbourhood councils in Tir 1398 with 3,540 members — the city council's neighbourhood councils office, via Persian Wikipedia, Tir 1398(cited)

Places where people write the budget

Participatory budgeting began in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989: neighbourhood assemblies ranked the city's capital share and the city council closed it. Since 2014 Paris has put about five percent of the city's capital budget, nearly a hundred million euros a year, to the residents' vote; anyone can propose and vote, of any age and with any passport.

In Iran a few municipalities have tried it, from Tehran's districts to middle-sized cities, and almost all stayed at consultation: people named priorities, and no share tied to their vote was defined. The distance from «give your view» to «spend it yourself» is the distance this experience wants to show.

From the exhibition

Sources

The first participatory budgeting: Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1989 — the participatory budgeting literature (Participatory Budgeting Project, World Bank), ۱۹۸۹(cited)
Paris's participatory budget: since 2014, about five percent of the city's capital budget, nearly a hundred million euros a year — City of Paris, budgetparticipatif.paris.fr, ۲۰۲۴(cited)

A coin that does not come back

The pipes tray is there to show something that happens in real meetings too: a neighbourhood's first wish is often something the municipality has no authority over. The coins you put on it return to the purse in this experience; in reality they turn into a letter to the water company that may get an answer three years later.

The story «Our alley's budget» in the experience «How are we all doing?» tells this very scene from 1415: the playground by seven votes. Here your vote is compared with the average of the hundred and fifty people before you, and everyone who comes after you sees you in the average too.

Written by us

Now / in a free Iran

Now
The neighbourhood council has no budget; it advises, and the district municipality decides.
Neighbourhood council، Aban 1378
In a free Iran
Paris puts about five percent of the city's capital budget to the residents' vote; Porto Alegre since 1989.
Paris's participatory budget، ۲۰۲۴ · The first participatory budgeting، ۱۹۸۹
The gap: this experience's hundred coins, imaginary here and spent there.
Now
The president appoints and removes the central bank's governor; average inflation over thirty-six years, twenty-two percent.
Who appoints and removes the central bank's governor، ۱۴۰۲ · Inflation, thirty-six years، Mehr 1405
In a free Iran
The Bank of England has set interest rates itself since 1997, and the European Central Bank takes instructions from no government, by treaty.
An independent central bank، ۲۰۱۶
The gap: money that loses a fifth of itself every year, and nobody who can be asked why.

Every number on the «now» side is from the site's fact sheet; every number on the «in a free Iran» side is a real figure from a free country or an international body, not a wish.

For discussion

If the ten billion tomans were real, would you gather your neighbours or decide yourself?
Which tray does your neighbourhood need that was not here? Who should pay for it?
A tenth of the budget put to the people's vote: too little or too much? Why not half?

In the same theme · Sound

What can be done · Sound

Petition
On karzar.net you can sign or start a petition; the body addressed sometimes replies officially. A short text and a clear demand gather more signatures.
The neighbourhood council
NowIn Tehran the neighbourhood councils are elected, advisory and without a budget; their monthly meetings are open and the district municipality decides.
In a free IranA neighbourhood council with a share of the budget it spends itself meets in the library or the sports hall and publishes the minutes the same night. Go, sit, ask.
NGOs and professional associations
Membership of an environmental NGO or a neighbourhood charity, or of your own profession's association, starts with a form; the teachers' and pensioners' associations exist right now, at all the cost it brings them.

Next: The gears of diversity