Coping with Growth in Tehran

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Demographics, Urban Management, Planning, grade: 1,3, HafenCity University Hamburg (Regional Planung / Regional Development), course: Arbeitsfelder der Stadtplanung im nationalen , language: English, abstract: Tehran City is the national capital and the economical, cultural, and social center of Iran. The city and the surrounding urbanized region, referred to as ¿Tehran Metropolitan Areä (TMA), is one of the largest mega regions of the world, having the highest concentration of population in Iran and the Middle-East. In course of industrialization and the increasing importance of Iran, Tehran has become magnet to companies and millions of migrants. Until 1970, the city has been the center of the national growth, fuelled by the centralization strategy of the national government. However, this changed as Iran¿s government steadily began to limit growth in Tehran, while directing it into the surrounding towns of Tehran. Today, over 7 million people live in the city of Tehran and over 12 million live in the TMA (in 2005). The unprecedented and phenomenal growth has exacerbated several problems such as environmental problems, traffic congestion, air pollution, housing shortage, lack of governmental finance, increasing poverty as well as infrastructure deficiencies within the city and the TMA. Managing the development of the city as well as the regional growth has been and is still a major challenge for the responsible governmental agencies. In order to cope with growth, the government has made different regulation approaches and has come up with various development strategies. The paper explores the different regulation efforts of the governmental agencies to control Tehran¿s development. Therefore, this paper intends to find out if the strategies to regulate development of Tehran city and the region are the appropriate tactics to cope with growth. This paper is organized in the following way: It starts by giving an overview of the current settlement structure of the TMA and Tehran city. In the next section, the different stages of Tehran¿s growth are examined by explaining the national circumstances, causes, and reactions of the governmental agencies to control the development by drafting policies or plans, and implementing measures. This is followed by an evaluation of these approaches with regard to the evolving consequences and the effectiveness to cope adequately with growth. Recommendations and final conclusions are presented at the end of the paper, based on the findings of this study. [...]