Investigating Factors Affecting Urban Growth of Large Cities in Iran

The present paper focuses on determining the most important factors affecting urban growth in large cities of Iran through modeling and comparing the common and diverse points of urban growth obtained from other studies. For this purpose, by reviewing the theoretical concepts associated with urban growth, quantities and measurable variables are developed as proper frameworks to study the influencing factors on urban growth. This paper describes the urban growth model through “logistic regressioni” by using both physical and socioeconomic driving forces analysis and urban spatial pattern evaluation. Three large cities in Iran were selected as the cases to fulfill the tasks and two series of influencing factors for large cities of Iran's urban growth were introduced: 1) Factors with favorable effects including bare lands, crop/ grass lands and less populated areas. 2) Factors with unfavorable effects including: lands covered with trees (forests) and distances from roads and industrial centers.