Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Current Trends in Urban Conservation: Medieval Historic Arab City Centers

Version 1 : Received: 16 November 2021 / Approved: 17 November 2021 / Online: 17 November 2021 (23:42:10 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Shehata, Ahmed Mohamed. 2022. "Current Trends in Urban Heritage Conservation: Medieval Historic Arab City Centers" Sustainability 14, no. 2: 607. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020607 Shehata, Ahmed Mohamed. 2022. "Current Trends in Urban Heritage Conservation: Medieval Historic Arab City Centers" Sustainability 14, no. 2: 607. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14020607

Abstract

As Arab countries are beginning to recover from the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, conservation programs are restarting. Noticeably, traditional conservation efforts have not helped improve the poor living conditions in most historic urban centers of Arab cities due to many reasons such as a lack of funds, urban management policies, and the narrow scope of conservation projects. In 2016, the UN urban agenda recognized tangible and intangible heritage as the basis for sustainable, vibrant, urban economies. These efforts reflect the new shift in conservation activities to tangible and intangible heritage and consider urban heritage a tourist product rather than antiquity. This approach grants urban vitality and sustainability for heritage areas. Thus, this study investigates the existing trends and forthcoming changes in conservation and their implication for the deteriorated historic urban city centers of the Arab world. International urban heritage conservation trends were highlighted, objectives and bases of successful urban conservation trends were reviewed, and an assessment framework was developed. Two case studies of historic centers in two Arab cities, Jeddah, and Aman, were empirically assessed using the developed framework. The findings highlight the most common urban problems of the historic centers in terms of urban management policies and trends. In addition, the impact of urban management policies on historic urban areas' sustainability, vitality, and quality was revealed. The paper ends with recommendations for conservation authorities to define a proposed framework to embed the conservation within the urban development plans for deteriorated historic urban centers. The paper's findings and recommendations can contribute to the required knowledge related to urban heritage conservation for practitioners and decision-makers.

Keywords

Arab cities; heritage conservation; urban management; sustainable built environment.

Subject

Arts and Humanities, Architecture

Comments (0)

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment
Views 0
Downloads 0
Comments 0


×
Alerts
Notify me about updates to this article or when a peer-reviewed version is published.
We use cookies on our website to ensure you get the best experience.
Read more about our cookies here.