Toward Sustainable Land Use of Urban Spaces in the Dense Areas: The Role of Organizing Activities in Enhancing the Flexible Environment in Palestine

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of traditional urban spaces in historic centers for the sustainable development of dense urban areas. Such spaces are supposed to be flexible with successive generations because they can facilitate different social, commercial, and religious activities throughout time. Thus, the main square of a Palestinian city-Nablus old city-was chosen for the study as the most important public space in the historic center. The paper summarizes the main manifestation of flexibility in the square that successfully assists in building a flexible place to satisfy users’ needs: rectangular shape, well enclosure, a ring of circulation, and extendible boundaries. A survey of users of the square was also conducted to explore people's opinions about the activities of the square for different age groups. The paper concludes that traditional concepts of designing public spaces can be suitable for all age groups because of their flexibility that supports daily and occasional activities. Moreover, the survey revealed that the young people group is the highest age group that has been satisfied with the daily activities of the square. Finally, three characteristics of activities are proposed to design a flexible public space: diversity, fair distribution, and compatibility.