A Study of Spatial Changes in the Southern Counties of Iran with an Emphasis on Spatial Planning (A Case Study: Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Chabahar, and Bandar-e Mahshahr)

Kiumarth Yazdanpanah1 and Zahra Ansari2

In spite of its centralized political geography, Iran requires decentralization in various official and political forms. However, this issue is mainly related to the administrative divisions of the country. The main motive behind the promotion of political units is to enjoy more welfare, public service, and state credit and budget. The outcome of this endeavor is the expansion of small and big urban centers without considering any kind of macrospatial planning. Given the necessity of planning for the administrative-political decentralization of the country, based on library and internet sources, this research aimed to analyze the general status of the political- spatial organization of Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Chabahar, and Bandar-e Mahshahr counties over a 16-year period (1996-2012) as some examples of the vast administrative divisions system of Iran. It also explored the present space of these counties based on Richard Hartshorne’s functional approach. The findings indicate that the main reasons for the promotion of the political units of the mentioned counties were the assumptions that they would receive a greater budget and enjoy some political benefits (having more delegates in the parliament and the ministry of interior). The writers suggest an increase in the amount of service and the number of facilities provided for political units so that they would not need to be promoted in order to receive such benefits.

Key Terms spatial planning administrative divisions of the country Bandar Abbas

1 . Assistant Professor of Political Geography, Geography Faculty, Tehran University, corresponding author, email: [email protected] 2 . MA in Political Geography, Tehran University. Bushehr Chabahar Bandar-e Mahshahr Persian Gulf