INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF SPATIAL INTERACTIONS IN URBAN CENTERSʹʹ GROWTH

This research was conducted using the descriptive-analytical method to study the role of spatial relationships on the growth of urban centers in the province of Fars and to find answers to the following fundamental questions. Are spatial relationships and growth of urban centers related to each other? Which spatial links have greater influences on the growth of urban centers? To find the answers, the rank-size Rule and the primate-city models were first employed to investigate how populations are distributed, and linear regressions were then used to determine the degrees of correlation between the growth of urban centers and the spatial relationships. Results of the research showed that the physical links with the travel index had the greatest effect, and that the economic index, the social links with the immigration index, the population attraction, and the economic links together with the indicator of cargo transport ranking second to fifth, respectively.