Towards decentralization: Spatial changes of employment and population in Tehran Metropolitan Region, Iran

- This study is going to investigate the evolution of spatial structure in Tehran metropolitan region.
- Polycentrism is one of the main development strategies especially in the new millennium.
- This concept is connected to triple interpretations: strategy, outcome and process.

Employment and population spatial structure of metropolitan regions have evolved in the era of post-industrialization. Empirical and theoretical debates have consensus that monocentric model is no longer explaining the phenomenon of population and employment distribution. One argument regards polycentricity as a permanent spatial structure beyond monocentricity; another idea believes that dispersion can explain spatial variation of employment and population too. This study investigated the level of monocentricity and primacy of principal city in Tehran Metropolitan Region (TMR), in addition to sub-centering and level of polycentrism. Dispersion of employment and population in TMR was also analyzed. The results revealed that standard monocentric model is not able to explain evolution of Tehran although it is dominant core of the region. The polycentric models illustrated that although the changes from 2006 to 2011 were not considerable, employment was more concentrated than population; they also showed that there is no distinction between polycentric and dispersion and regions may have some levels of polycentricity and dispersion.