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Tehran, Iran
The capital city of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran began
as a small city of 15,000 inhabitants in 1788. Since then, the
population of Tehran has steadily increased due to the growth of
government administration and industrial firms, as well as
in-migration of people from other cities and rural areas
seeking employment.
The population of the urban centre grew from 1.04 million in
1950 to an estimated 6.8 million in 1995.
Tehran is an important industrial and commercial centre. As
of 1988, more than half of the manufactured goods of the
Islamic Republic of Iran were produced in Tehran. Industrial
plants manufacture such items as textiles, cements, sugar,
china and pottery, electrical equipment and pharmaceuticals.
There is also an automobile assembly industry. Government
administration is an important source of employment. According
to the 1986 census, 45.6% of wage and salary earners were in
the public sector.
After the 1979 revolution and during the war between the
Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq, industrial development and
construction works in the city slowed considerably and resulted
in lower in-migration.
The rapid growth of the city has resulted in housing
shortages, pollution and traffic congestion. In recent years, air
pollution in Tehran has emerged as an area of serious concern.
The greatest percentage of air pollution comes from private
automobile emissions.
In order to alleviate the increasing problems of urban
transport and associated air pollution, the Municipality of
Tehran has initiated a number of efforts, namely a trolley bus
system, the implementation of separate bus lanes to increase
efficiency, trucking restrictions, multi-story parking
structures, the opening of the metro system, and an electronic
traffic control system.
Tehran currently suffers from an inadequate supply of water to
meet the needs of the expanding city. Likewise, the provision
of sewage facilities remains unsatisfactory to the demand, and
most human waste is discharged untreated into the ground or
watercourse, increasing the hazards of contamination.
The Government of Tehran has been pursuing a programme of
decentralization. To facilitate decentralization
from Tehran, the plan envisages equipping a selected number of
large cities to serve as regional centres that would
increasingly perform the functions of the capital city. It is
hoped that this plan will absorb the surplus population of
Tehran. the main idea is to narrow the gap between rural and
urban areas in terms of their access to social and commercial
services.
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