مواقع عواصم المحافظات بمنطقة مكة المكرمة بين المركزية و الهامشية

Abstract EN

This study aims to pointing out the role of growth centers (regional and local) in creating regional balance, shedding the light on the obstacles the area is encountering and the available potentials of human and natural resources.

The study utilizes the inductive approach to draw a complete picture of the area’s urban layout using some models to measure and analyze the into-spatial features.

Models include Boyce- Clark Scale, Central City – Urban Fringe Coefficient and a model for measuring potential growth in the administrative capitals and the important cities in the area.

Other statistical methods were used to aid the researcher in reaching several results, for example: no relation was found between the relative importance of the number of urban communities and the number of people in every province of the area .

The study also shows that community patterns with small populations are dominant in the structural distribution of population size categories.

Results of applying Boyce-Clark Scale used to distinguish the patterns of the area’s administrative provinces showed that they fall into three sections: close to merging, semi-merging and extended province.

Applying the Central City – Urban Fringe Coefficient showed that being central or semi-central does not apply to any of the area’s administrative capitals and that they all fell in interface, fringe and semi-fringe categories.

This was supported by the model of potential growth which confirmed great variation between the cities of the area regarding their growth potentials.