Golrokh Sepasdar

Community Involvement in Rehabilitation of Heritage Cities: with Focus on Middle East and North Africa Golrokh Sepasdar

The success of an urban rehabilitation project is strongly based on its impact on everyday lives of the inhabitants. Lack of public awareness which has significant influence on implementation of urban rehabilitation projects,is a major cause of the ineffectiveness of urban schemes. Ineffective regulations regarding urban rehabilitation in Middle Eastern and North African(MENA)countries contributes to shortages in implementing urban rehabilitation schemes and plays a major role in causing distrust towards decision-makers. However,despite the increasing awareness and approval of MENA governments of the significance of public participation in sustainability of urban rehabilitation projects,these schemes do not benefit much from public participation. This study develops a deeper insight towards approaches of urban rehabilitation in a number of MENA cities in which public participation was reported to be employed as a means towards sustainable urban development. Fez, Aleppo,and Istanbul are relevant cases as they are under the implementation of such projects. This study should be useful to researchers who investigate methods of community involvement in policy-making in developing countries.