Gholamreza Latifi; Alireza Samani
Volume 18, Issue 70 , August 2009, , Pages 59-64
Abstract
The capital of Iran, located in Tehran, is virtually the center of all activities in the country and is still attractive to absorb the population. While Tehran can be developed as the focus of some of the future activities, such as higher education and advanced technology in the future, it should be ...
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The capital of Iran, located in Tehran, is virtually the center of all activities in the country and is still attractive to absorb the population. While Tehran can be developed as the focus of some of the future activities, such as higher education and advanced technology in the future, it should be gradually taken out of the position of the general center for all of the country's affairs. To this end, the focus of the growth of other issues can be transferred outside Tehran - in different cities, or at a new point.
2) Iran’s capital is facing various problems - from traffic, transportation and access to air pollution. These issues should be solved or at least partly healed by employing efficient managers and utilizing a variety of facilities - human resources and equipment and funds.
3) The geographical situation of Iran is such that its different regions have different climates. Having a metropolis like Tehran, which is practically the center of political, educational, industrial, health and medical care and business of the whole country, necessitates the displacement of large groups of people of the country to or from Tehran – or residing in there- for the sake of their activities development. With these conditions, it is better to have a few metropolitan areas, instead of a major metropolis.
4) The situation in Tehran in view of the fact that most of its recently developed parts are located in hazardous areas in terms of natural disasters - earthquakes and the vicinity of active faults, the floating domains and the possibility of landslide, instability and land subsidence, flood risk and its history in Tehran, The issue of surface and underground water and droughts for several decades or more - has gradually increased the risk of life in Tehran. The process of migration to Tehran has continued according to the latest data of Iran's statistics center. One of this issue’s results is the growth of slum dwelling, insecurity development - especially in the marginal areas of the city and new cities, delinquency and unemployment and other problems in Tehran. Multiculturalism in Tehran turns into cultural problems, instead of cultural development of Tehran.
5) With this condition, Tehran’s growth is practically accompanied by the destruction of spaces and urban fabric with house-garden identity. The Capital that has neither it’s old nor a modern identity, practically loses the qualification of being the Capital to a country with civilization and cultural history of Iran.
6) Air pollution in Tehran is such that, in particular in the cold season, it is associated with the unnoticed loss of life of our young and old countrymen and those with respiratory problems. I called these casualties to be unnoticed, because many of those whose lives are being shortened because of this crisis, neither themselves nor the others count them as casualties due to air pollution. Along with these challenges and other important reasons for the necessity of stopping the growth of Tehran, the simultaneous attempts to make it possible to live in it and the gradual transfer of part of the activities out of the province of Tehran, as well as the need to find options for a completely new capital - not an existing city that will eventually lead to a fate like Tehran - there are various issues raised by critics of this transfer, main ones of which are: 1) Many problems in Tehran are urgent. There is no time left to spend energy on other options. Any amount of energy should be allocated to improve the current situation in Tehran. Answer: This summing up was done about the city of Tehran after the end of the war with Iraq, whose consequent was of course the creation and development of urban and modern infrastructure, and simultaneously, unplanned urban development, sale of licenses for building extra floors, and management according to money and imbalanced urban development. What’s more, estimate of urgent and daily needs are always met with the challenge of “forgetting major planning”.
Gholamreza Latifi; Alireza Samani
Volume 18, Issue 69 , May 2009, , Pages 41-44
Abstract
The transfer of the capital is a problem that has always been a concern of the past governments of Iran, so that after various experiences of the transfer of the capital by Shah Abbas, Nadir Shah, Karim Khan Zand and others to cities such as Isfahan, Mashhad and Shiraz, Aghamohammadkhan of Qajar, ...
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The transfer of the capital is a problem that has always been a concern of the past governments of Iran, so that after various experiences of the transfer of the capital by Shah Abbas, Nadir Shah, Karim Khan Zand and others to cities such as Isfahan, Mashhad and Shiraz, Aghamohammadkhan of Qajar, determining Tehran as the everlasting capital, sewed the dress of traffic jams on Tehran's body and started the process which led to multi-billion trades in this city so that the small village became such a metropolis. The capital or political center in Iran, like its political boundaries, has had many ups and downs during the history of the country, and, subject to the change of government, its capital, except in a few cases, has been moved from city to city. A glance at the historical past of this change reflects the various motivations that have displaced the political center of the country in accordance with the time, place and social structure of the state, by preserving the political strategy and geopolitical issues of the time. These motives were mainly first political-security, and in the second place economic-social. Tehran, which today is the capital of Iran, does not have a long urban history. This city has long been one of the small villages of Rai, and the city of Tehran has grown since the Qajar period and its capitalization. These days, some have raised the issue of transferring the capital or the center of the country to another place. Concerning this suggestion, various and different opinions have been expressed. In this paper, we tried first of all to consider the transfer of the capital, in general and by considering the circumstances we are in on the one hand, and on the other, the experience and objectives of the countries that have chosen the new capital. Then, in contrast to the proposal to transfer the capital in the present situation, which public opinion may consider as a kind of escape from responsibility, we attempted to examine the main issue or the search for a solution that would allow the gradual elimination or modification of the problems of Tehran metropolis.
