Sustainable Urban Design Model for Residential Neighborhoods Utilizing Sustainability Assessment-Based Approach

Abstract

The sustainable urban design of residential neighborhoods plays an important role in the efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals and alleviate the effects of climate change. This paper aims to develop a model for the sustainable urban design of residential neighborhoods, taking into account the local condition in Palestinian territories. This model is built on various international neighborhood sustainability assessment (NSA) tools, based on the review of existing assessment tools, to study the sustainability status of Palestinian neighborhoods, and to develop a sustainable indicator model for local sustainable neighborhood assessment. Computer tools like Urbano and GIS tools as well as qualitative assessment methods are used. Results from the case study showed that the satisfaction of the preferred location indicator was not sufficient to maintain its sustainability. The assessment of measured indicators found that weaknesses were almost double the count of the satisfactory indicator. Moreover, some indicators from the (NSA) tools were partially or completely met, and some gaps appeared because of the lack of strengths in the selected indicators of the international tools when used for local social, ecological and governmental aspects, and there are issues in the inclusion of economic and environmental elements in current urban configurations. The proposed local model offers valuable insights for local governments, municipalities, and construction developers.

Keywords

• urban design
• sustainable neighborhood assessment
• Palestine
• sustainable development