Investigating the Factors Influential on the Urban and Regional Spatial Structure Using the Content Analysis Method

Problem Statement:

 Investigating the urban and regional spatial structure over the last two decades has undoubtedly been one of the most challenging issues in this field. So far, the most studies have focused on identifying and analyzing the spatial structure and spatial distribution of the population and activity and the comprehensive studies have not been conducted to investigate the factors affecting the urban and regional spatial structure.

Therefore, this paper intended to review the scholarly literature on the factors and forces influential on developing and changing the urban and regional spatial structure. Research

The study was conducted through the content analysis method. At the first step, after identifying the study area and the keywords to search for the valid English databases, 66 papers were selected from among the papers published between 1998 and February 2019. At the next step, the summarization of the data and their coding were conducted and finally the effective factors and driving forces were categorized and analyzed. Results and

The results showed that 8 main categories of factors including the demographic changes and social processes, economic processes, infrastructure and equipment, physical and environmental, rules and regulations, globalization and the driving forces in accordance with these factors are influential on the urban and regional spatial structure. The findings revealed that the factors and driving forces influence the spatial structure in a hierarchical form and with different intensities.