Community Participation as an Approach for Sustainable Development in the framework of Strategic Planning: The Case of Beitunia City – Palestine رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

The Palestinian context is facing considerable challenges in the sustainability of urban development due to occupation and colonialism, as well as deficiencies in the national and local urban planning institutions. On the other hand, many strengths and opportunities are found in the context to be utilized for acquiring the development and implementation of urban sustainability strategies. This research investigates the potential of community participation as an approach for sustainable development within the framework of strategic planning of cities in the urban context of Palestine. At the end of this thesis, an urban sustainable development model is proposed to be implemented in the urban context of Palestine. This qualitative study is based on interpretivism as the research theoretical perspective and adopts an inductive approach to the research process. In that framework, the objective of this study was attained by adopting Beitunia city as a case study to assess its urban sustainability through iterating phases of data collection and analysis. Secondary data from interviewing officials and accessing official documents and maps were used to highlight the strategic issues in the context. While primary data from interviewing community members and observations were used to validate the strategic issues, define the factors affecting the sustainability of the urban development of the city, and highlight the needs and aspirations of community members. For that purpose, the data went through phases of analysis through encoding interviews and SWOT analysis. Findings of this phase emerged in a holistic understanding of the factors affecting urban sustainability for Beitunia city and were categorized under 4 main themes namely: local governance, environmental sustainability, social equity, and economic development. UrV gent strategic issues were found related to the local governance, environmental quality, and community awareness, while urgent needs of community members were found to be: high-quality urban spaces and services, and a conserved natural environment. Findings from the case were utilized to develop an adequate strategic plan for sustainable urban development of Beitunia through the TOWS matrix tool. Furthermore, an urban plan for the city was developed to provide urban spaces for the potential outcomes of the strategic plan, as well as urban places for community members’ needs and desires. Finally, through reflecting on the process of developing the strategic plan for Beitunia city, a sustainable urban development model was proposed for discussion and implementation in similar contexts in Palestine.