Spatial Analysis of Urban Development in Iran (City Sizes Growth)

Almost all countries have faced the urbanization. In the long run, changes in the production technology have caused migration from rural to urban areas. Existing cities have grown and new ones have been created. This is named as “urban development” in the urban literature. Cites are created because of economies of scale in production and consumption. There are different cities with different sizes in an urban system which produces different goods and services. There are different factors affecting the urban development among them economic ones are important. This paper surveys the impact of economic factors on city size growth through Henderson’s urban development models. These models are specified in spatial panel data models and are estimated for 1966-96 for Iran’s urban system. Hence, contiguity effects are entered in the models by spatial econometric techniques. The results show that considered factors have affected city sizes growth in Iran, and contiguity and neighboring effects have had important role in Iran’s city sizes growth.