Sahraei Juybari, Ahmad2023-02-152023-02-152023http://hdl.handle.net/2003/4123910.17877/DE290R-23083After the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth century, massive changes in the social and economic sectors occurred, particularly in cities. These changes have accelerated urban growth by providing more financial resources and opportunities for urban areas than rural areas. As a result, cities have become larger, more populated than rural areas, and urban issues have become more complex and serious. The city of Sari, since the last decades, has been facing massive migration, uncontrolled land-use change, non-sustainable consumption of farmlands, and sprawling growth. Simultaneously growing the city, the city's issues became more challenging. Methodologically, this thesis benefits from methodological pluralism and seeks to analyze the city of Sari with attention to the defined objectives and questions in chapter one. Methodological pluralism involves employing multiple methods to obtain a value. Therefore, this thesis applied several mathematical models and softwares considering the types of data. Parts of the data were collected from the published data and reports by Iran’s national and regional organizations. Moreover, some of the data that were not available were collected through field works, surveys, and interviews with experts and managers. The results show that the current centralized political structure has made urban management ineffective and reduced public participation in the planning and executing processes. The results of the models for analyzing the urban system in the Mazandaran metropolitan area have shown agglomeration of the population in the urban areas, especially in the big cities, particularly in Sari. The urban system is centralized, and there is an imbalance between the size and rank of cities, especially in big cities. Also, the results of land-use change modeling and working with satellite images have shown that the city of Sari has been faced with massive sprawling growth, particularly during the last decades. And finally, the results of land-use changes analysis using GIS and aerial images have shown progressed unplanned land-use changes, particularly near the official border of Sari city.enPlanning systemUrban developmentLand use changesLand consumptionUrban sprawl growthThe Mazandaran metropolitan areaSari city710doctoral thesisSariMasenderanSiedlungsplanungZersiedlung