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 , 29 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Tehran City is the national capital and theeconomical, cultural, and social center ofIran. The city and the surroundingurbanized region, referred to as TehranMetropolitan Area (TMA), is one of thelargest mega regions of the world, havingthe highest concentration of population inIran and the Middle-East.In course of industrialization and theincreasing importance of Iran, Tehran hasbecome magnet to companies and millionsof migrants. Until 1970, the city has beenthe center of the national growth, fuelled bythe centralization strategy of the nationalgovernment. However, this changed as Iran s government steadily began to limit growth inTehran, while directing it into the surrounding towns of Tehran. Today, over 7 million peoplelive in the city of Tehran and over 12 million live in the TMA (in 2005). The unprecedentedand phenomenal growth has exacerbated several problems such as environmentalproblems, 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 regionalgrowth has been and is still a major challenge for the responsiblegovernmental agencies. In order to cope with growth, thegovernment has made different regulation approaches and hascome up with various development strategies. The paper exploresthe different regulation efforts of the governmental agencies tocontrol Tehran s development. Therefore, this paper intends tofind out if the strategies to regulate development of Tehran cityand the region are the appropriate tactics to cope with growth.This paper is organized in the following way: It starts by giving anoverview of the current settlement structure of the TMA andTehran city. In the next section, the different stages of Tehran sgrowth are examined by explaining the national circumstances,causes, and reactions of the governmental agencies to control thedevelopment by drafting policies or plans, and implementing measures. This is followed by an evaluation of these approaches with regard to the evolvingconsequences and the effectiveness to cope adequately with growth. Recommendations andfinal conclusions are presented at the end of the paper, based on the findings of this study.[...]