Urban development and expansion trends under the political instability in palestine: jerusalem- ramallah case study
Date
2016-08-24
Authors
Raddad, Samer
Samat, Narimah
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Rapid publication
Abstract
Urban development, expansion, and Land use changes in the urban environments are a global
phenomenon, by 2050, urban population in the world will increase to be more than 6.6 billion
inhabitants and they will live with less than 1% of the world land surfaces. Political instability
is one of most important drivers that effecting on the land cover/land use change and urban
expansion, especially in the areas that faced the political problems and wars. Urban development in
Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) impacted strongly by Political Transformations during 20th
century and early of 21th century. The political instability factor in OPT leaded to distortion of
Palestinian urban form and effecting on future urban expansion and development. Therefore, this study
aims to assess of urban development and planning in Palestine during the political transformation
stages, as well as it aims to explore urban expansion trends under the geopolitical effects in Jerusalem
– Ramallah urban region as a model in the Palestinian urban environment. Descriptive, historical,
and cartographic methods conducted based on used Geographic Information System to explore
existing and future urban expansion trends in Jerusalem – Ramallah region as a case and model in the
Palestinian urban environments. The result showed how the political instability conditions effected
strongly on the urban development process and expansion in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Therefore, this study will improve our Knowledge in the urban development research context about the
relationship between the urban development and the political transformations. Palestinian policy
makers and planners, as well as Palestinian planning organizations at different levels need to put more
efforts to prepare of the regional, sub-regional , and master plans for all Palestinian localities and
regions especially in the OPT, in the conflict and sensitive areas such as Jerusalem –Ramallah region.
This study recommend to adaption a new planning ideas and strategies to face the Israeli physical
planning in the Palestinian urban environments like compact communities and principles of smart urban
growth.
Description
Keywords
Urban Expansion , Urban Development , Political Instability , Occupied Palestinian Territories