An-Najah National University 

Faculty of Graduate Studies 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Urban Sprawl in the Shade of Urbanization 

and planning Legislations: Case Study of Um 

Al-Sharayet District, Al-Bireh City / Palestine 
 
 

 
 
 
 

By 

Hind Basil Mohammed Alaraj 
 
 

 
 
 

Supervisors 

Dr. Ali Abdelhamid 

Dr. Zahraa Zawawi 
 
 

 
 

This Thesis is Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement 

for the Degree of Master in Urban and Regional Planning 

Engineering, Faculty of Graduate Studies, An-Najah National 

University, Nablus, Palestine. 

2017 



ii 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Urban Sprawl in the Shade of Urbanization 

and planning Legislations: Case Study of Um 

Al-Sharayet District, Al-Bireh City / Palestine 
 
 
 

By 

Hind Basil Mohammed Alaraj 
 
 
 

 
This Thesis was defended successfully on 14/8/2017, and Approved by 

 

 

Defense Committee Members         Signature 

 
 

1. Dr. Ali Abdelhamid / Supervisor   .......................... 

 

2. Dr. Zahraa Zawawi/Co-Supervisor   .......................... 

 

3. Dr. Samih Alabed / External Examiner  .......................... 

 

4. Dr. Ehab Hijazi / Internal Examiner   .......................... 



iii 

Dedication 

In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful 

All praise be to God for all the achievements in my whole life 

and to be surrounded with grate family and friends where words 

are inadequate to express my feelings especially toward my 

family’s endless support and trust in my journey, whether in 

U.A.E or Palestine.   I dedicate all my efforts, achievements and 

my thesis to my Parents, my husband, my sister and brother, my 

amazing grandmothers, my uncles and aunts, my family in law, 

my friends and every single person who hosted me in Palestine. 

I am really grateful to every single person who supported me in 

every single tinny step, until I achieved my intention and goal. 

Thank you all for being the bright side of my life. 

  



iv 

Acknowledgement 

`I would like to express my gratitude to every person who 

supported in this thesis and I acknowledge the endless support 

of supervisors Dr. Zahraa Zawawi and Dr. Ali Abdellhamid and 

I am thankful for all their advices to accomplish this thesis. I 

am grateful for all the Palestinian officials in the Palestinian 

Ministry, Al-Bireh Municipality, every single person and every 

single corporation for assistance to finalize my thesis. 

Thanks for all the faculty members of Urban and Regional 

Planning at An-Najah University because I learnt from them a 

lot and I tried to make use of all the things I was taught from 

them in this thesis. 

  



v 

  اإلقرار

  :العنوان تحمل التي الرسالة مقدمة أدناه الموقعة أنا

Urban Sprawl in the Shade of Urbanization 

and planning Legislations: Case Study of Um 

Al-Sharayet District, Al-Bireh City / Palestine 

: الزحف العمراني في ظل التحضر و تشريعات التخطيط  

فلسطين/ الشرايط، مدينة البيرة  حالة دراسية حي أم  

 تمت ما باستثناء الخاص، جهدي نتاج هي إنما الرسالة هذه عليه اشتملت ما بأن أقر

 درجة أية لنيل قبل من يقدم لم منها جزء أي أو كاملة، الرسالة هذه وأن ورد، حيثما إليه اإلشارة

  .أخرى بحثية أو تعليمية مؤسسة أي لدى بحثي أو علمي لقب أو

Declaration 

The work provided in this thesis, unless otherwise referenced, is the 

researcher's own work, and has not been submitted elsewhere for any other 

degree or qualification. 

  name: Student's                                                              :الطالبة اسم

  :Signature                                                                          :التوقيع

  Date:                          :التاريخ

  



vi 

Table of Contents 
No. Content Page 

 Dedication iii 

 Acknowledgement iv 

 Declaration v 

 Table of Contents vi 

 List of Tables ix 

 List of Figures x 

 Abstract xiii 

 Chapter One: Introduction 1 

1.1 Introductory Background 2 

1.2 Problem Statement 5 

1.3 Objectives 7 

1.4 Thesis Questions 8 

1.5 Thesis Hypotheses 8 

1.6 Plan and Methodology 9 

1.6.1 Plan 9 

1.6.2 Methodology 9 

1.7 Thesis Structure 12 

 
Chapter Two: Literature Review Part I: 
Urbanization and Urban Sprawl 

14 

2.1 Why Urbanization? 15 

2.1.1 Urbanization Concept and Trends 16 

2.1.2 Urbanization in Developed Countries 21 

2.1.3 Urbanization in Developing Countries 23 

2.1.4 Urbanization in Arab World 27 

2.1.5 Urbanization Impacts and Consequences 32 

2.2 Urban Sprawl and Beyond 34 

2.2.1 Urban Sprawl Concept and Trends 37 

2.2.2 Urban Sprawl in Developed Countries 43 

2.2.3 Urban Sprawl in Developing Countries 47 

2.2.4 Urban Sprawl Impacts and Consequences 52 

 
Chapter Three: Literature Review Part II: 
Urbanization, Urban Sprawl and Statutory Planning 
Laws in Occupied Palestinian Territories 

59 

3.1 Urbanization in Occupied Palestinian Territories 60 

3.2 Urban Sprawl in Occupied Palestinian Territories 67 

3.3 
Statutory Planning Laws and Policies Role: Power and 
Space 

78 

3.3.1 Ottoman Period (1850-1917) 82 

3.3.2 British Mandatory Period (1917-1948) 84 



vii 

No. Content Page 

3.3.3 Jordanian Period (1948-1967) 86 

3.3.4 Israeli Occupation Period (1967-1994) 89 

3.3.5 Palestinian National Authority Period (Since 1994) 93 

 Chapter Four: Al-Bireh Urban Development 101 

4.1 An Overview of Al-Bireh City 102 

4.2 Al-Bireh History of Development and Urban Planning 107 

4.2.1 Islamic Period 107 

4.2.2 Crusader Period 108 

4.2.3 Ayyubid Period 108 

4.2.4 Ottoman Period (1517 -1917) 108 

4.2.5 British Mandate Period (1917 -1948) 109 

4.2.6 Jordanian Period (1948 - 1967) 111 

4.2.7 Israeli Occupation Period (1967 - 1994) 116 

4.2.8 Palestinian National Authority Period (Since 1994) 120 

4.3 Challenges of Al-Bireh City Expansion 131 

4.3.1 Political Challenges 131 

4.3.2 Landownership 132 

4.3.3 Land Use classifications 134 

4.4 The Emergence of Um Al-Sharayet District 136 

 
Chapter Five: Um Al-Sharayet: A District Evolution 
in the Context of the Historical Urban Development 

of Al-Bireh 

139 

5.1 An Overview of Um Al-Sharayet District 140 

5.2 
Urbanization and physical urban development of Um 
Al-Sharayet 

143 

5.2.1 Ottoman Period (1517 -1917) 143 

5.2.2 British Mandate Period (1917 -1948) 145 

5.2.3 Jordanian Period (1948 – 1967) 146 

5.2.4 Israeli Occupation Period (1967 - 1994) 146 

5.2.5 Palestinian National Authority Period (Since 1994) 150 

5.3 
Role of Policies and Statutory Planning Laws in Um 
Al-Sharayet 

162 

5.3.1 Jordanian Period (1948 – 1967) 163 

5.3.2 Israeli Occupation Period (1967 - 1994) 165 

5.3.3 Palestinian National Authority Period (Since 1994) 167 

5.3.4 Brief Evaluation 188 

 Chapter Six: Conclusion and Recommendations 192 

6.1 Conclusion 193 

6.2 Recommendations 195 

 References 201 



viii 

No. Content Page 

 Appendix 218 

 ب الملخص 

 

  



ix 

List of Tables 

No. Table Page 

Table (4.1) Land Classifications of Al-Bireh City) 128 

Table (4.2) 
Land ownership classifications within the 
organizational boundaries  

133 

Table (5.1) 
Land-blocks of Um Al-Sharayet District - Adapted 
by author from source 

142 

Table (5.2) 

Horizontal building density of land-blocks in Um 
Al-Sharayet District - Adapted by author from 
source 

160 

Table (5.3) 
Vertical building density of Al-Bireh City’s land-
blocks - Adapted by author from source 

162 

Table (5.4) 

Amended floors numbers of residential buildings 
during different periods - Adapted by author from 
source 

175 

Table (5.5) 
Building regulations and systems for residential 
land uses – Adapted by author from source 

176 

Table (5.6) 
Types and percentages of Building violations in 
Um Al-Sharayet – Adapted by author from source 

178 

 

 

  



x 

List of Figures 

No. Figure Page 

Figure (1.1) Thesis conceptual model 3 

Figure (1.2) Thesis plan diagram 9 

Figure (1.3) Methodological data collection flowchart 10 

Figure (2.1) 
Projected percentage increase in urban 
population 2000–2030 

19 

Figure (2.2) Forms of Urban Sprawl 38 

Figure (2.3) 
Unsuitable physical terrain prohibits continuous 
development 

40 

Figure (2.4) 
Schematic Diagram Urban Structure of a 
Developing Country’s City 

48 

Figure (3.1) Geopolitical map of the West Bank 77 

Figure (3.2) West Bank division under Oslo Accords 92 

Figure (3.3) 
Colony expansion and control of West Bank 
Land 

95 

Figure (4.1) 

Location of Al-Bireh city within the boundaries 
of Palestinian Territories - Adapted by author 
from source 

103 

Figure (4.2) 

Location of Al-Bireh city according to the 
location of West Bank governorates - Adapted 
by author from source 

104 

Figure (4.3) 

Location of Al-Bireh city in Ramallah and Al-
Bireh Governorate - Adapted by author from 
source 

105 

Figure (4.4) 
Al-Bireh City Boundaries - Adapted by author 
from source (Al-Bireh Municipality, 2016) 

106 

Figure (4.5) 
An Aerial view of Ramallah and Al-Bireh in the 
late Ottoman Period 

109 

Figure (4.6) 
An Aerial view of Al-Bireh City in 1944 - 
Adapted by author from source 

110 

Figure (4.7) 
An Aerial view of Al-Bireh in 1967 - Adapted 
by author from source 

112 

Figure (4.8) 

Al-Bireh Municipal border plan during 
Jordanian Period, Urban Expansion before 1966 
- Adapted by author from source 

114 

Figure (4.9) 

Al-Bireh Municipal border plan during 
Jordanian Period, Urban Expansion in 1966 - 
Adapted by author from source 

115 

Figure (4.10) 
Al-Bireh Municipal border plan during Israeli 
Period - Adapted by author from source 

119 



xi 

No. Figure Page 

Figure (4.11) 
An Aerial view of Al-Bireh City in 1995 - 
Adapted by author from source 

121 

Figure (4.12) 

Al-Bireh Municipal border plan certified by 
Israeli authorities during PNA Period - Adapted 
by author from source 

123 

Figure (4.13) 
Al-Bireh Boundaries of 2000 and 2003- 
Adapted by author from source 

125 

Figure (4.14) Al-Bireh Master Plan in 2003 127 

Figure (4.15) 

Land Classifications of Al-Bireh City and 
Palestinian built-up areas - Adapted by author 
from source 

129 

Figure (4.16) 
Land Classifications within the organizational 
boundaries of Al-Bireh City 

130 

Figure (4.17) 
Land use classifications according to the current 
master plan 2003 of Al-Bireh 

134 

Figure (4.18) 
Um Al-Sharayet District land-blocks and 
location - Adapted by author from source 

137 

Figure (5.1) 

Location of Um Al-Sharayet District in 
Ramallah and Al Bireh Governorate - Adapted 
by author from source 

140 

Figure (5.2) 

Location of Um Al-Sharayet District within 
organizational boundaries of Al-Bireh City - 
Adapted by author from source 

141 

Figure (5.3) 
Land-blocks of Um Al-Sharayet District – 
Adapted by author from source 

142 

Figure (5.4) 

Water springs of Um Al-Sharayet and 
archeological sites before 1918 –Adapted by 
author from source 

144 

Figure (5.5) 
Um Al-Sharayet location in the late Ottoman 
period – Adapted by author from source 

145 

Figure (5.6) 
Urban development and expansion of Um Al-
Sharayet in 1972 – Adapted by author from 

147 

Figure (5.7) 

Um Al-Sharayet building uses during Israeli 
Occupation period in 1972 – Adapted by author 
from source 

147 

Figure (5.8) 

Diversity of building materials reflect the 
demographic income differences in Um Al-
Sharayet 

152 

Figure (5.9) 

Urban development and expansion of Um Al-
Sharayet during PNA period in 1995 – Adapted 
by author from source 

153 



xii 

No. Figure Page 

Figure (5.10) 
Um Al-Sharayet building uses during PNA 
period in 1995 – Adapted by author from source 

154 

Figure (5.11) 

Um Al-Sharayet District land uses according to 
the Master plan of Al-Bireh Municipality of 
2003 – Adapted by author from 

155 

Figure (5.12) 

Urban development and expansion of Um Al-
Sharayet during PNA period in 2007 – Adapted 
by author from 

156 

Figure (5.13) 
Um Al-Sharayet building uses during PNA 
period in 2007 – Adapted by author from source 

157 

Figure (5.14) 

Urban development and expansion of Um Al-
Sharayet during PNA period in 2011 – Adapted 
by author from source 

158 

Figure (5.15) 
Um Al-Sharayet building uses during PNA 
period in 2011 – Adapted by author from source 

159 

Figure (5.16) 
Mass and void plan of Um Al-Sharayet in 2011 
– Adapted by author from source 

161 

Figure (5.17) 
Oslo Land Classifications of Um Al-Sharayet 
District - Adapted by author from source 

168 

Figure (5.18) 
Building violations and differences in the 
heights of adjacent buildings 

169 

Figure (5.19) 

Buildings violations in Um Al-Sharayet based 
Building and Organization System No. 5 of 
2011 

176 

Figure (5.20) Buildings violations in Um Al-Sharayet District 177 

Figure (5.21) 
Buildings height violations in Um Al-Sharayet 
District 

178 

Figure (5.22) 
Landownership plan of Um Al-Sharayet during 
PNA period – Adapted by author from source 

183 

Figure (5.23) 
Um Al-Sharayet multi-storey buildings 
constructed of durable materials 

185 

Figure (5.24) 
Um Al-Sharayet insufficient infrastructure 
“streets and parking” 

186 

Figure (5.25) 
Lack of public awareness and waste 
management in Um Al-Sharayet 

186 

Figure (5.26) Lack of waste management in Um Al-Sharayet 186 

Figure (6.1) Public area network 197 

Figure (6.2) 
A development of high density area by 
providing pedestrian and active paths 

197 

Figure (6.3) 
Respecting human scale and providing spaces 
for people 

197 



xiii 

Urban Sprawl in the Shade of Urbanization and planning Legislations: 
Case Study of Um Al-Sharayet District, Al-Bireh City / Palestine 

By 
Hind Basil Mohammed Alaraj 

Supervisors 
Dr. Ali Abdelhamid 

Dr. Zahraa Zawawi 

Abstract 

Urban transformation of the Palestinian cities is a consequence of 

urban sprawl which is created by urbanization and the cumulative statuary 

laws since Ottoman period until Palestinian Authority period which led to 

expand cities and create irregular and fragmented forms as well as shortage 

in lands, especially agricultural land, where urban sprawl affected directly 

the agricultural land availability and land values. 

This thesis aims to explore the relationship between urbanization and 

statutory laws in creating urban sprawl as a process, and the risk of this 

random expansion on the Palestinian lands and the consequences of urban 

sprawl, and investigate the conditions as well as obstacles facing the 

Palestinian planning process, in addition to analyze and interpret the 

process of urban transformation change of the Palestinian cities “the case 

study of Um Al-Sharayet District”. 

The thesis methodological approach is deductive, descriptive, 

analytical, and historical based on data collection and case study where 

quantitative and qualitative methods are used. This thesis concludes, that 

urban sprawl is caused by the rapid uncontrolled urbanization and lack of 

community awareness and the lack of building control due to 



xiv 

organizational weakness, in addition to deficiency and shortages in urban 

planning laws, where the current statuary planning laws don’t respond to 

current challenges. For the sake of the urgent need for land and the strong 

ideology between land and Palestinians, the thesis recommend producing 

new mechanisms to protect the agricultural lands, and to upgrade their 

values to enhance the agricultural economic sector, and producing new 

sustainable urban planning strategy by considering the social, economic, 

physical, environmental and administrative pillars to have a healthy urban 

development, in addition to empowering master plans and detailed plans 

which have to be updated, and spreading public awareness, which all would 

pour in the basin of Palestinian community and national benefit. 

Keyword: Urban Sprawl, Urbanization, Statutory Laws, Al-Bireh, Um Al-

Sharayet. 



1 

 

 

 

Chapter One 

Introduction 

  



2 

Chapter One 

Introduction 

1.1 Introductory Background: 

We shape our cities; therefore they shape us. 

Cities forms are created cumulatively and affected by planning, 

politics, control, resources and topography which all of these combined 

together to affect the urban transformation and development patterns. Form 

borders and boundaries are not only those affected by geography but also 

politics, so it is more about statutory laws more than physical boundaries 

(Suisman D, Simon S, Robhinson G, Anthony C, and Schoenbaum M 2005). 

However, the world started to change in the 19th century due to 

“urbanization” which created by the migrations of people from rural areas 

to urban areas because of Industrialization (Bekele H 2005). After cities 

centers became congested in developed countries, people started to move 

outskirt of the cities and created what is called decentralization. 

Decentralization in USA and developed countries created Urban 

Sprawl which is characterized by low density development, dis-

connectivity, less concentration, less compactness, less diversity and less 

proximity in development and planning than city center. Decentralization 

created urban sprawl in developed countries, while urbanization in 

developing countries led to urban sprawl (Ottensmann J, 1977). 

Urbanization in developing countries started in 1950, and caused by the 

need for better job opportunities so rural-urban migration started to appear 



3 

in developing countries. Although urban sprawl in developed countries 

came from “preferences” of people to move away from centers of cities, 

while on the other hand, urban sprawl in developing countries came from a 

“necessity” to search for better jobs (Bekele H, 2005). 

The following graph shows the conceptual model of the thesis 

(Figure 1.1). 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure (1.1) Thesis conceptual model – (Author, 2017) 

The rapid growth due to migrants and natural growth in urban areas 

of developing countries, raised the call of urban developments, which these 

developments were not well managed due to land allocation, planning 

techniques, and insufficient infrastructure and services (Bekele H, 2005). 

Urbanization and urban sprawl in developing countries are somehow 

similar to Palestinian situation, but Palestine has one more unique 

dimension which is the urban planning system because it is a result of 

previous accumulating statutory laws  and controlled by external forces in 

addition to the lack of local bodies power (Abdelhamid A, 2006) (Terenzi 



4 

A, 2014). Statutory laws came as a result of succession of different 

administrations and governments were ruled Palestine in different periods, 

which are Ottoman Period (1850-1917), British Mandatory Period (1917-

1948), Jordanian Period (1948-1967), and Israeli Occupation Period (1967-

1994) which all created their own laws to serve their needs and to impose 

control over land (Abdelhamid A, 2006). Oslo Peace Agreement in 1994 

came up with the most cruel land classifications which imposed more 

control over Palestinian lands until nowadays, which divided lands into 

three main zones; Zone A, Zone B, and Zone C, which created fragmented 

and irregular cities forms as a result of urban sprawl (Abdelhamid A, 2006). 

Within the beginning of Palestinian Authority in 1994, a slight economic 

recovery in Palestinian cities, especially Ramallah which led to rural-urban 

migrations and internal migrations from other cities, so as a result, cities 

started to expand over agricultural lands which threatened Palestinian 

lands, natural vegetation and hydrological systems. At the beginning of 

Intifada II in 2000, Israel increased colonies construction and constructed 

the Separation Wall in 2003 which didn’t leave many alternatives to where 

Palestinian cities can expand, which made the form of cities more and more 

fragmented (Abdelhamid A, 2006). 

The uniqueness and complexity of the geopolitical Palestinian 

condition as well as the lack of Palestinian administrative bodies and 

Palestinian planning authority to control urban sprawl, affected the form of 

urban spaces. The separation between Palestinian lands is due to Israeli 

colonies, Separation Wall and geopolitics limited the Palestinian vision 



5 

continuity of urban expansion and development (Abu Helu M, 2012). The 

demand for better infrastructure and maintaining the agricultural lands in 

addition to the rapid growth created the main pillars of challenges that face 

Palestinian planning authorities. So, Palestinian cities have fragmented and 

irregular forms especially with all of these obstacles in addition to the lack 

of land that can be devoted for future urban expansion. 

1.2 Problem Statement 

Since urbanization started in West Bank and the migration of 

Palestinians from rural areas to urban areas where it faced the first wave of 

urbanization in 1948, which is considered a little bit earlier than other 

developing countries.  The phenomena of urbanization increased with the 

coming of Palestinian Authority in 1994, where urban developments 

increased as well as cities enlarged. Although, urban infrastructure wasn’t 

sufficient to handle those developments and the rapid urban growth. 

Recently, many of the problems in the Palestinian cities had been 

exacerbated, where are highlighted by the scarcity of Palestinian land and 

rapid urbanization (Shaheen L, 2013). 

The succession of different governments those ruled Palestine and 

accumulation of different statutory laws, until the coming of Palestinian 

National Authority and the Oslo Peace agreement in 1994, more load were 

put on the availability of Palestinian lands due to the divisions into Zone A, 

Zone B, and Zone C, where Zone C of no Palestinian control over, present 

the highest percent of vacant lands on the West bank which inherent 



6 

Palestinians to expand vertically in many cases (Terenzi A, 2014). So when 

most of vacant lands, Palestinians have no role to develop, as well as the 

rapid urbanization with the old cumulative statutory laws, played a major 

role in creating urban sprawl , which influenced and caused the dramatic 

change of the urban transformation y and the city form. The policy of land 

confiscation from Palestinians to build Israeli colonies, bypass road and the 

Separation Wall as well as the geopolitical constrains as well as the 

Palestinian political instability and the poor updates on statutory laws 

created a fragmented and irregular urban transformation of Palestinian 

cities (Shaheen L, 2013). 

Palestinians need lands which is a life need for them, however urban 

sprawl not only changed the city form, but also posed a major threat on 

agricultural lands due to urban expansion over agricultural lands and rural 

areas of  Palestine, where for example, rural areas population percentage in 

Palestinian Territories has dropped from 25 percent in 1990 (Terenzi A, 

2014) to 16.7 percent in 2015 (Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 

2015) and all the surrounding villages within 15 kilometers away from the 

city center transformed into suburbs (Terenzi A, 2014). This did not only 

affect how well lands are exploited in terms of protecting what is left from 

them, but also it is about the danger of destroying agricultural lands in 

terms of economy, ideology, diversity and Palestinian ecosystem, 

especially when cities expanded over agricultural lands, affected the urban 

transformation of the cities not only by fragmented forms, but also have the 

type of the urban transformation, to have for example residential urban 



7 

transformation as the maximum type over land rather than protecting the 

agricultural lands and their values. 

So, the urban forms and ecological complexities will be unbalanced, 

and we can notice that agricultural lands in Palestine are decreasing which 

is an alarming sign for the future Palestinian generations. Thus, protecting 

land, proper land use development, and convenient land exploitation as 

well as updating the statutory laws and enhance urban development in a 

way that protect the city form are the most important issues to get over the 

problems caused by urban sprawl which can be solved by understanding 

the process of urban sprawl. Moreover, understanding the biggest 

challenges in the face of the reduction of urban sprawl which are “Prior 

needs” and  the need of “economic viability” (Bekele H, 2005). 

The case of Um Al-Sharayet is not only facing urban sprawl 

problems, but also have lost all its agricultural lands, with no opportunities 

for future expansion, in addition to the lack of services and efficient 

infrastructure systems. Although the case of Um Al-Sharayet has it is own 

uniqueness and it is mentioned in the following chapters, but it is necessary 

to highlight that many other Palestinian districts and cities may reach to the 

alarming rate of Um Al-Sharayet in terms of urban sprawl. 

1.3 Objectives 

• Explore the relationship between urbanization and statutory planning 

laws in creating the phenomena of urban sprawl, and the risk it on the 

Palestinian Territories lands. 



8 

• Investigate the conditions and obstacles facing the Palestinian 

planning process and explore the driving forces which led to urban 

sprawl. 

• Analyze and interpret the process of urban transformation change of 

the Palestinian cities and the land uses especially for the case study of 

Um Al-Sharayet District, and consequences of these changes. 

1.4 Thesis Questions 

The thesis tend to answer the following questions: 

• What is the process that causes urban sprawl, particularly in 

Palestinian Territories – West Bank? 

• How urban sprawl in the West Bank affected the urban transformation 

of Palestinian cities? 

• To what extent the previous planning laws and the mixture of 

statutory laws affected the Palestinian planning scheme. 

1.5 Thesis Hypotheses 

This thesis tries to prove the following hypotheses. First, power 

relations, statuary laws and urbanization played the major role of creating 

urban sprawl which transformed the Palestinian territorial urban 

transformation and became one of the consequences of urban sprawl. 

Second, the cumulative planning laws strongly affected Palestinian 

planning scheme, with no modifications or even creating new suitable 



Palestinian planning laws. Finally, geopolitics, occupation and other socio

economic factors obstruct 

sprawl and planning development process.

1.6 Plan and Methodology

1.6.1 Plan 

The plan of this thesis is based upon the following three frames:

 

 

 

 

 

Figure (1.2) - Thesis plan diagram 

Each chapter is introduced briefly in the following section (

structure). 

1.6.2 Methodology 

According to the nature and the problem of the study and each frame 

of thesis plan, the methodology used research approaches in undertaking 

each frame. These approaches are: historical, descriptive, analytical and 

deductive approaches. The thesis has two main methodological steps: data 

collection, case study.

9 

Palestinian planning laws. Finally, geopolitics, occupation and other socio

economic factors obstruct the Palestinian planning process to control urban 

sprawl and planning development process. 

 Plan and Methodology 

The plan of this thesis is based upon the following three frames:

Thesis plan diagram – (Author, 2017) 

chapter is introduced briefly in the following section (

 

According to the nature and the problem of the study and each frame 

of thesis plan, the methodology used research approaches in undertaking 

approaches are: historical, descriptive, analytical and 

deductive approaches. The thesis has two main methodological steps: data 

collection, case study. 

Palestinian planning laws. Finally, geopolitics, occupation and other socio-

the Palestinian planning process to control urban 

The plan of this thesis is based upon the following three frames: 

chapter is introduced briefly in the following section (1.7 thesis 

According to the nature and the problem of the study and each frame 

of thesis plan, the methodology used research approaches in undertaking 

approaches are: historical, descriptive, analytical and 

deductive approaches. The thesis has two main methodological steps: data 



• Data collection: 

Data collection has two main categories, primary data and secondary 

data that will be sufficient for the analytical study. Primary data are 

interviews “with Al

Government, planners and professionals in the private sector” discussions, 

modifying and creating some maps, and on site observations. Seco

data are summarized by previous studies and reports, maps and photos, 

which are used mainly in the literature review. Thus, both of qualitative 

and quantitative research methods are used for data collection and analysis. 

Qualitative research methods 

observations, maps, photographs and previous studies, while quantitative 

research methods here are only in reviews of records and numeric 

information. Data collection can provide better understanding of the stud

and the case study. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure (1.3): Methodological data collection flowchart 

10 

 

Data collection has two main categories, primary data and secondary 

sufficient for the analytical study. Primary data are 

interviews “with Al-Bireh City Municipality, Ministry of Local 

Government, planners and professionals in the private sector” discussions, 

modifying and creating some maps, and on site observations. Seco

data are summarized by previous studies and reports, maps and photos, 

which are used mainly in the literature review. Thus, both of qualitative 

and quantitative research methods are used for data collection and analysis. 

Qualitative research methods are mainly here in-depth interviews, on

observations, maps, photographs and previous studies, while quantitative 

research methods here are only in reviews of records and numeric 

information. Data collection can provide better understanding of the stud

Methodological data collection flowchart – (Author, 

Data collection has two main categories, primary data and secondary 

sufficient for the analytical study. Primary data are 

Bireh City Municipality, Ministry of Local 

Government, planners and professionals in the private sector” discussions, 

modifying and creating some maps, and on site observations. Secondary 

data are summarized by previous studies and reports, maps and photos, 

which are used mainly in the literature review. Thus, both of qualitative 

and quantitative research methods are used for data collection and analysis. 

depth interviews, on-site 

observations, maps, photographs and previous studies, while quantitative 

research methods here are only in reviews of records and numeric 

information. Data collection can provide better understanding of the study 

(Author, 2017) 



11 

• Case Study: 

The case study tries to cover, document and analyze the case of Um 

Al-Sharayet District in Al-Bireh city.  It paves the way for better 

understanding and analysis for the Palestinian situation in general, and Um 

Al-Sharayet district in particular. 

Al-Bireh was chosen because of its geographical location which 

faced a rapid population growth due to the Jerusalemites migrations, rural-

urban migration and the coming of Palestinian Authority administrative 

bodies which based in Ramallah in 1994 until nowadays, where Ramallah 

is very close it Al-Bireh. It has a reasonable accessibility for the researcher 

and relatively good information sources. Um-Al Sharayet District, has its 

own characteristics and present a form of the Palestinian urban sprawl 

where the rapid migrants movements and natural growth of Um Al-

Sharayet when property-owners started at the beginning to expand in low-

density areas which later on created fragmented settlements, and then 

became more congested in an unplanned and informal patterns fragmented 

urban forms and somehow insufficient infrastructure, where the impact of 

politics and statuary planning laws, in addition to migration and 

urbanization directed and strangled the expansion of Um Al-Sharayet as 

well as the rest of Palestinian cities. 

• Difficulties and challenges: 

There is limited information about the case of Um Al-Sharayet in 

addition to limited computerized data in terms of maps where many things 



12 

doesn’t have plans for it like the building violations map which it is 

supposed to show the location of building violations and the percentages of 

them. Moreover, in terms of on-site observations, were an obstacle, due to 

the sensitivity of Um Al-Sharayet location and the residents’ composition, 

where most of them refused to answer or even to collaborate in collecting 

data because they don’t trust questioner and they have doubts and fears 

from the intentions of the questions. Many of them didn’t accept to capture 

photographs for their buildings maybe because they are having building 

violations or unlicensed building uses. 

1.7 Thesis Structure 

The scheme of this thesis is basically divided into five main sections 

which are; introduction, literature review, Al-Bireh historical development, 

Um Al-Sharayet: a district evolution in the context of the urban 

development of Al-Bireh, the case study of Um Al-Sharayet and finally 

recommendations and conclusion.  Chapter I is the introduction, which 

gives a general idea about the thesis and to highlight the main concepts of 

the thesis, where Chapter II and Chapter III of literature review covers the 

collected previous studies and findings regarding the thesis title as well as 

all the founded and related concepts. Chapter IV of Al-Bireh urban 

development gives an introductory and overview of the thesis’s case study 

with some connected reasons between Al-Bireh and Um Al-Sharayet which 

influenced the created phenomena of Um Al-Sharayet District. The case 

study is analyzed in Chapter V of Um Al-Sharayet: a district evolution in 



13 

the context of the historical urban development of Al-Bireh, which gives a 

description and analysis for the urban sprawl phenomenon of Um Al-

Sharayet District where all the previous studies, maps, photographs, 

interviews and observations are used for discussing and analyzing the case 

study, and thus all the findings and results are used in Chapter VI, in a trial 

to give some recommendations as well as a final conclusion. 

  



14 

 

 

 

Chapter Tow 

Literature Review Part I:  

Urbanization and Urban Sprawl 

  



15 

Chapter Tow 

Literature Review Part I:  Urbanization and Urban Sprawl 

2.1 Why Urbanization? 

The populations of countries all around the world are becoming 

increasingly urbanized (McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014) 

(Brown L, Gray R, Hughes R and Meador M, 2005). Urbanization is a 

phenomena happens only in urban settlements which it’s also compromise 

the population migration from rural locations to urban ones, as well as the 

transition of rural and landscape areas into urban settlements and 

neighborhoods (McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014). 

The reasons and degree of urbanization vary from country to country 

and from time to time, but still the world urbanization has major shared 

causes between the different countries. This section covers the different 

trends and concepts of urbanization and its unique situation in developed, 

developing countries and Arab world, as well as urbanization in Palestinian 

Territories where it is mixture of urbanization characteristics between 

developing countries and Arab world as well as unique Palestinian 

urbanization characteristics. At last, a discussion about the impacts and 

consequences of urbanization on city planning and in terms of advantages 

and disadvantages, especially when it becomes a threat and causing urban 

sprawl but it is not the only outcome of urbanization, although urban 

sprawl is increasingly becoming an issue that is associated with 

urbanization no matter where it takes place in the whole world (Bekele H, 

2005). 



16 

2.1.1 Urbanization Concept and Trends 

Through history, most of humans were living in rural areas (Hutter 

M, 2015) (Bekele H, 2005), where in 1800 about 97 percent of the world’s 

population were living in rural areas (Pacione M, 2009) (Hutter M, 2015), 

as well as the creation of totally new cities which was between 1750 and 

1800 period and considered as the new urbanization period (Pacione M, 

2009). Selective places and town planning created as cities which remained 

on a limited scale (Khamaisi R, 1997) until the industrial revolution which 

took place between eighteenth and nineteenth century (West E, 

1978)(Pacione M,2009), which led to a radical change in urbanization, 

where subsequently, villages become big cities and towns (Khamaisi R, 

1997) (Pacione M,2009). 

Urbanization can be defined as the increase in the proportion of the 

population living in areas that have been defined as urban areas 

(AbuHafeetha M, 2014) (Dyson T, 2011), and it also refers to the 

transformation of land use from rural lands which most of them are for 

agricultural use, to urban land for urban uses like housing projects (Brown 

L, Gray R, Hughes R and Meador M, 2005) (McGranahan G and 

Satterthwaite D, 2014). Although the previous two definition are so basic, a 

more comprehensive definition is needed and can better describe 

urbanization, which is: the process of increase of total population ratio in 

urban settlements, where cities are considered the place of producing 

diverse social life, better services, and job opportunities which lead to 



17 

city’s expansion, multiplication and conversion of spaces from rural land 

uses to urban land uses (AbuHafeetha M, 2014). 

So, industrial revolution considered as the main reason behind 

urbanization, which caused the movement of rural-urban migrations, and 

cities considered as producers for social benefits and services compared to 

rural areas in that time, in addition to employment opportunities as a result 

of industrializations and commercialization, and these are considered as the 

main shared reasons behind urbanization but every country has these 

causes in a different time frame and in different rates, which will be 

discussed in the following parts in details. Urbanization led to further 

expansions in metropolitan cities like London for example, and created new 

cities like Glasgow and Manchester. (McCatty M, 2014) (McGranahan G 

and Satterthwaite D, 2014). The trend of urbanization where by creating 

urban areas or moving from rural to urban, began to change in the first 

decade of the 20th century which led cities to grow in physical sizes and 

numbers of new cities (Bekele H, 2005). But it is not always the case 

because in many cases urbanization created slums and informal 

settlements, not only cities (McCatty M, 2014) (McGranahan G and 

Satterthwaite D, 2014). 

However, migrant populations shift back and forth between urban 

and rural areas (McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014), and it is not a 

fixed one direction only to cities, specially that many population moves 

from urban areas to rural but with transforming villages to cities or small 



18 

urban settlements (Cohen B, 2006). Moreover, population’s rural-urban 

migration is consisted of two main types; internal migration and 

international migration where both of them contribute and affect urban 

growth (Bhatta B, 2010). 

Internal migration is the rural-urban shift of population within the 

country, while international migration is the migration of labors from other 

countries, illegal migrants, and refugees those who escape from natural 

disasters or wars (Bhatta B, 2010). Furthermore, pull factors and push 

factors play a key role in the interpretation of internal or international 

migration (AbuHafeetha M, 2014) (Bhatta B, 2010). 

Push factors are those conditions coming from the original place of 

individuals or groups where it pushes them to leave the place a search for a 

place which is more secure economically or searching for a place with 

welfare (Bhatta B, 2010) or displacements due to wars or even political 

persecution (Bhatta B, 2010) (AbuHafeetha M, 2014), or displacements to 

escape from natural disasters, discrimination or in many rural places where 

migrants shift due to social stigma (AbuHafeetha M, 2014). On the other 

hand, pull factors are the conditions in the new places where they entice 

groups and individuals shift there, because these places offer better services 

of education, entertainment and health, employment opportunities and 

more welfare in cities more than rural area (Bhatta B, 2010) (AbuHafeetha 

M, 2014). 

So basically these push and pull factors affect rural-urban migrations 

in first role and as a result affect urbanization which lead to leave rural 



19 

areas to go to cities, or leaving cities to rural areas and convert these rural 

areas into new cities and expansions, and both factors can be found in 

anyplace in the world of developing or developed countries and can be 

changed within time and upon each country’s conditions. Although In all 

cases and all over the world, recently the urban population in the world is 

growing and increasing faster than the natural population growth and the 

whole population growth is expected to increase specially due to the 

expansion of existing cities (Brown L, Gray R, Hughes R and Meador M, 

2005) and the whole urbanization rate all over the world between 1950 and 

2010, has changed from less than 30 percent to more than 50 percent in all 

over the world (United Nation, 2012)(Glaeser E, 2014), where urbanization 

rate and trend is raising rapidly now (Figure 2.1), and these high 

urbanization rates created new cities, expansions and sometimes slums, 

especially in developing countries with an alarming rate because they are 

not able to compete with the rapid urbanization rates (Bekele H, 2005) 

(Bhatta B, 2010). 

 

Figure (2.1): Projected percentage increase in urban population 2000–2030- 

(Bekele H, 2005)  



20 

The rapid urbanization rate all over the world will definitely affect 

the urban areas, where these urban areas will expand on rural areas and 

rural land use will be transformed into an urban land use and lead to the 

most dangerous consequence of the rapid urbanization (Brown L, Gray R, 

Hughes R and Meador M, 2005), causing urban sprawl all over the world, 

where sprawl is increasingly becoming an issue that is associated with 

urbanization no matter where it takes place (Bekele H, 2005). 

Although urbanization had been hit the whole world, but the pattern 

of urbanization and the causes behind it in developed and developing 

countries are contrasting, and urbanization did not occur in the same 

chronological context for both. Urbanization process started in developed 

countries first, which caused by industrial revolution and then followed by 

suburbanization, while urbanization’s process in developing countries came 

after 1950 which is came as a result of the independence of colonialism and 

the rapid demographic growth; which is rural-urban migrations and natural 

population growth (Bekele H, 2005) (Pacione M, 2009). 

But, there is general agreement on the attributes of general 

characteristics of urbanization around the world in terms of demographic 

changes and centralized economy in certain areas like cities which is 

spatially limited in a certain geographic space, and the urbanization change 

of people’s lifestyle who have moved to urban areas (Lupala J, 2002) and 

urbanization firstly caused by industrial revolution which didn’t only 

affected villages and rural areas but also existing cities. At the end, 



21 

urbanization’s causes differ from time to time and from country to country 

(AbuHafeetha M, 2014) and created slums, crowded areas, informal areas 

and socio-economic problems which are major consequences of 

urbanization in developed and developing countries. 

2.1.2 Urbanization in Developed Countries 

In nineteenth century, rapid urbanization was one of the most 

important phenomena in the field of urban planning, in developed countries 

of Europe and North America the urbanization is caused by 

“industrialization” (Bekele H, 2005) (McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 

2014) (Dyson T, 2011) (Mondal P, 2015), where human population growth 

increased from one billion to seven billions during that time which hits the 

highest growth rate was ever recorded in the urban history (Terenzi A, 

2014). 

Urbanization arrived in these countries to an unprecedented rates in 

the past two decades, as cities become more numerous and larger like never 

before, when urbanization increased as a result of industrialization and the 

development of transportation and telecommunications globally and the 

positive political environment which is free of conflicts (Cohen B, 2006). 

Accordingly, those incentives migrations led to increase the rate of 

population growth in the cities at the expense of the rate of population 

growth in rural areas where it has led to a decreasing significantly (Dyson 

T, 2011). 



22 

Industrialization had also the major impact on the economy of 

developed countries, it caused the biggest shift of economy from an 

agricultural and farm rural economy to an industrial urban economy which 

defiantly caused rural-urban migration (Dyson T, 2011)(Pacione M, 2009) 

all over these countries and cities in various rates. Therefore, urbanization 

was simultaneous with the economy’s process of change and development 

where industrial activities increased rapidly and the establishment of 

factories and cities became magnets for labors and provided job 

opportunities in the time when the industry became the most important and 

influential than agriculture and thus become cities motives and incentives 

for growth (Henderson J, 2014). For that, good economy “if found” is the 

main reason behind urbanization either in developed or developing 

countries. 

Moreover, cities provide better infrastructure, services and amenities, 

which work as magnet for investors and private sectors which leads to 

accelerated urban population growth rates (Freire M, 2006). Easy 

transportation and job opportunities stimulated continuous series 

migrations and contributed with population shift from rural, not only to 

urban centers, but also the surrounding areas around cities, which also 

made the city expand and become larger than before (McGranahan G and 

Satterthwaite D, 2014) (Cohen B, 2006) (Bekele H, 2005). 

During the 19th century, the urban population increased dramatically 

in the industrial cities which suffered from inadequate infrastructure and 



23 

insufficient services, with the appearance of informal settlements which 

had almost no services and no infrastructure of sanitation or even water 

supplies (Pacione M, 2009) as well as deterioration in services and life 

conditions in cities, in which prompted to slowing the pace of urbanization, 

and the middle class migrants who choose to shift from the center of the 

city to outside and cities expanded (Cohen B, 2006) and created new 

phenomenon appeared which is suburbanization in 1950 (Cohen B, 2006) 

(Mondal P, 2015) when cities began to relatively lose population and 

people began to go outside the cities and on the edges (Mondal P, 2015). 

2.1.3 Urbanization in Developing Countries 

Before 1950 and the independency of most of developing countries, 

Britain and France were the two strongest colonial countries and 

experienced planning not only in Britain and France but also exported their 

acts to their colonies in developing countries, not to develop these 

countries, but to impose control and to dominate those countries as well as 

developing only colonies where French and English people live in 

developing country (Khamaisi R, 1997). 

They transferred also their planning legislation to serve their 

ambitions and to impose more control, where either by using the same 

urban legislation between colonial countries and colonies (Khamaisi R, 

1997) or by practicing urban bias in that time. For example, Algeria was a 

French colony which France practiced its own planning legislations and 

used similar urban legislations  in the same general in their colonies in 



24 

Algeria, while this is not the same situation in British colonies, where 

Britain in that time didn’t not give that attention that much to urban 

legislations that would improve the hazard situation of those developing 

countries specially while many infrastructure and housing problems 

appeared in large cities in developing countries as well as lack of services 

and sanitation systems due to the rapid pace of urban growth. All of these 

reasons, led Britain to create additional and separate colonies for only 

British colonizers in that time (Khamaisi R, 1997). Therefore, unlike 

developed countries, industrialization didn’t strongly cause urbanization in 

developing countries, where here it seems there are stronger factors and 

strongly correlated links between urbanization and institutional factors with 

politics which affected developing countries (Henderson J, 2014). 

In developing countries, urbanization began in 1950 which was due 

to population growth after the end of World War II when most of these 

countries gained independence and the migration from rural areas to the 

city in a way to find better opportunities of jobs and better life standards 

which stimulate cities’ expansion (PacioneM, 2009) (Bekele H, 2005) 

(Mondal P, 2015) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A, Mobaraki O 2012). 

However, the pace and rate of urbanization increased extraordinarily 

after 1950 and cities of developing countries were growing faster than 

cities in developed countries(McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014) 

(Pacione M, 2009) and new cities created in a very short time (FreireM, 

2006), especially when independent developing countries wanted to 

experience the taste of practicing their power of independence. 



25 

But here is the puzzle which is about the reasons behind urbanization 

in developing countries doesn’t have a direct relation with industrialization 

specially they are poor countries with poor economy which is about low 

levels of Gross Domestic Product and low Per Capita Income, and the 

industrial sector is just in the very primary stages and concentrating on 

light industries. For that, some argue that urbanization doesn’t have that 

strong a sturdy link with income change but more related to politics 

(Henderson J, 2014), others argue that nowadays there is a more sturdy 

link between income and urbanization pace in some developing countries 

specially after 1960s, (Glaeser E, 2014) (Lupala J, 2002). For instance, due 

to Oil Revelation in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, has been 

dramatically accelerated the pace of urbanization in all of the GCC 

countries and attracted many people from all over the world to move to 

those countries (UN-Habitat, 2012). 

Actually, urbanization in developing countries caused by a mixture 

of economic, political, governmental and institutional factors, especially 

where each developing country has its own situation till nowadays. 

Moreover, emigration played a major role in urbanization but in a different 

form, where usually informal migrants tended to live large villages which 

became urban or in semi-urban areas but not in a fully urban areas 

(McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014). 

So upon these causes, the urban population in developing countries 

increased from 300 million in 1950s, and reached up to 1.3 billion in 1990 



26 

and expected to reach up to 3.5 billion by 2020 and the cities of those 

developing countries are unpredictably growing due to migration and 

natural population growth (Lupala J, 2002). 

However, the growth of unregulated and unpredictable in developing 

countries, faces various challenges which worsen the situation of 

urbanization, where the poor infrastructure, services and transportation, as 

well as stinginess of resources, are all not enough to cope with the needs of 

rapid urbanization’s population (Bekele H, 2005) (Freire  M, 2006) (Cohen 

B, 2006) (Pacione M, 2009). Moreover, many of these countries suffered 

from cruel social and political entities and structures which added more 

complexity to the situation (Freire  M, 2006)  as well as the lack of 

planning systems and improper allocation of land (Bekele H, 2005). As a 

result, many of urban population in developing countries suffer from health 

diseases due to the inadequate infrastructure, sewage systems and solid 

waste disposals, as well as deficient access to pure water for drinking 

(Cohen B, 2006). Probably these challenges facing urbanization since 

1950s in developing countries until nowadays, which appear only in 

economically poor countries with low pace of economic growth (Dyson T, 

2011),  where these countries are unable to cope with the pace of rapid 

urbanization. 

So in countries with lack of productivity, urbanization and economy 

here is not about productive cities but rather with consuming cities 

(Henderson J, 2014) (Pacione M,2009) and such cities with only 



27 

consumers, made the economy based on services sectors, and here come 

the challenges of urbanization in developing countries, where expansion of 

cities need good economy (Pacione M,2009) to provide adequate 

infrastructure, sewage systems, services as well as more management of 

urban population growth with creating cohesive planning scheme and 

structure and make cities productive not only consumers for a better life for 

all (Freire M, 2006). 

2.1.4 Urbanization in Arab World 

Arab World, as it is part of developing countries, affected by the 

same general factors which affected urbanization in developing countries. 

The same of what happened in other developing countries during the 

colonial era from developing only the colonies there (Khamaisi R, 1997), 

repeated as well in the Arab World where colonies in that era expanding 

and spreading, and reflecting the upper-class European architectural styles 

and wide avenues with bigger district and multi-storey buildings, while 

expansion of these colonies  came at the expense of residential areas where 

many of them were converted into business areas and offices (UN-Habitat, 

2012) . 

After most of Arab countries got their independence, the actual 

impact of urbanization in terms of the interactions of physical and social 

have begun especially after the second half of the twentieth century, where 

the independent Arab countries sought to create an Arabic identity of 

urbanization with cities of Arabic authenticities (Miller C, 2007). It’s worth 



28 

mentioning that, until the mid of twentieth century, most of the Arab world 

areas were have a rustic rural character but in the present days most of 

Arab World has become urbanized (Miller C, 2007). 

Although, the independent Arab countries nationalized large spaces 

of land and reformed them, as well as re-controlled and possessed the land 

owned by the previous colonial countries which  the independent Arab 

countries used these lands for the allocation of land for expansion and 

services, especially with an increase in the annual rate of urban growth 

from four to eight percent in the period between 1960s and 1980s 

(Kharoufi M, 1996), but the public land reserves which are allocated for 

public services, became decreasing, while the inability to accommodate the 

demand for land and the provision of services are increasing as a result of 

the rapid urban population growth in urban areas and the increase of urban 

expansion in all the Arab world cities (Kharoufi M, 1996). 

Thus, the annual urban population growth rates reached its peak in 

1970s but decreased in the period of 1980s (Kharoufi M, 1996) (Miller C, 

2007), to reach a rate of only two to four percent only (Kharoufi M, 1996). 

Although, Arab World countries registered as unprecedented urban 

expansion of cities as a result of urbanization (Kharoufi M, 1996), and this 

expansion coincided with the rapid pace of population growth, as the 

political dimension has played a major role by constituting independent 

post-colonial states, and concatenation of conflicts not only in the region 

but also in the World of Globalization (Miller C, 2007). After those Arab 



29 

countries were completely constituted, a new wave of urbanization 

immerged because of economic developments, and the major role of 

migration due to either the Oil Revolution in GCC countries which 

attracted migrants, or due to conflicts and wars in some countries of Arab 

World which pushed immigrants to become displaced (UN-Habitat, 2012) 

(Schäfer K, 2013). 

Economic migrants tended to move to the capital cities or to the 

dominant economic centers, while spreading to other areas and villages 

started since the mid of 1970s (Kharoufi M, 1996) (Miller C, 2007), where 

displaced migrants due to wars and natural disaster chose slums to live in 

(UN-Habitat, 2012). In 2010 refugees counted 7.4 million in the Arab 

world, and 9.8 million of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who remained 

within their countries’ borders, and 15 million international economic 

migrants to other Arab countries (Schäfer K, 2013). So, Arab world became 

one of fastest countries in the pace of urbanization (Miller C, 2007) 

(Schäfer K, 2013) (Abou-Korin A, 2011), where from 1970 to 2010 the rate 

of urban growth reached up to 400% with 56 percent of population live in 

cities in 2010 with 357 million residents, and expected to increase up to 

646 million residents by 2050 as well as 68 percent of population expected 

to live in cities and urban settlements by the year 2050 (Schäfer K, 2013). 

In terms of economy, many of these countries to prove themselves in 

the globalized world, they transferred their economies from agricultural 

based economy into an industrial and services economy for the sake of 



30 

attracting private sectors and investors, which is exactly what happened in 

Maghreb countries (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania) 

where they also changed their land allocations and relied on banking 

systems to provide better financial facilities (UN-Habitat, 2012). Moreover, 

the GCC countries played a major role in the international migration which 

attracted migrants due to the economic revival as a result of Oil Revolution 

in those countries (Miller C, 2007). While most of Mashriq countries 

(Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) 

and Syria) have economic activities which are intensive in either capital 

cities led to internal rural-urban migrations (UN-Habitat, 2012). 

Countries like Jordan and Lebanon accepted international migrants 

like Palestinian and Iraqi refugees (Miller C, 2007), and more recently 

Syrian refugees. So the successive of past and even recent conflicts and 

wars particularly in Mashriq countries and the Southern Tier (Djibouti, 

Somalia, Sudan and Yemen), which made urbanization accelerated in some 

countries at the expense of other countries and worsening the situation of 

controlling this rapid urbanization as well as the internal immigration to 

flee from natural disasters or even conflicts if displaced people couldn’t 

immigrate internationally (UN-Habitat, 2012). As a result, immigrations 

happen in different pace and locations upon the situation of the country 

they would immigrate to (Miller C, 2007).Parallel to the expansion of cities 

and creating new planned neighborhoods for high-medium class, there was 

unplanned settlements and informal housing which contained up to 50% of 

the urban population in many of Arab world countries (Miller C, 2007). 



31 

These unplanned informal settlements and slums are caused by the 

lack of land that cannot accommodate the rapid growth due to the internal 

migrations, or due to the lack of registered titles of lands, and the lack of 

affordable housing, while the refugee camps created as a result of 

international migrations and suffer not only from bad living conditions, but 

also from social trauma in many cases (UN-Habitat, 2012). Either informal 

settlements or refugee camps, they suffer from inadequate adequate 

infrastructure, sewage systems and housing specially in in countries like 

Mashriq countries which are not that much rich economically, the situation 

is worsen with the migrants who fled from wars (UN-Habitat, 2012) 

(Miller C, 2007). 

Although Arab world countries have rapid urbanization, but most of 

them suffer from lack of job opportunities specially with 53 percent of the 

urban population is young and under the age of 25, there’s a magnificent 

demand for jobs, so here unemployment became a ghost hangs over the 

region and the youth are pushed to look for jobs elsewhere and thus to 

immigrate nationally or internationally (UN-Habitat, 2012). For example, 

GCC countries have been receivers for the educated or skilled professionals 

from Mashriq countries, while Marshreq countries had been receivers and 

exporters, receivers of less skilled workers and refugees, but exporters of 

the well educated professionals (UN-Habitat, 2012). 

As a result, the rate of urban population growth is much higher than 

the rate of national population growth (Kharoufi M, 1996) which added 



32 

more load on the shoulders of Arabs governments specially when they 

don’t have sufficient capacity and ability to keep pace with the rapid 

urbanization process which is really critical in terms of planning for the 

coming generations (UN-Habitat, 2012). These critical challenges are 

harsher in a country that is still not independent neither politically nor 

economically, with no absolute sovereignty over “land” which is the most 

important factor for expansion and growth which the case of Occupied 

Palestine. 

2.1.5 Urbanization Impacts and Consequences 

Urbanization brought many benefits of economic, cultural, social and 

lifestyle developments (McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014) 

(Wilson S, 2015) (Bhatta B, 2010) specially during the 19th and 20th 

centuries, urbanization and industrialization were strongly affected the 

economy and job opportunities which led to massive rural-urban migration, 

while nowadays and due to globalization developing countries are 

experiencing the same situation of flourishing in job opportunities which 

also led to rural-urban migration for those who are looking for job in cities 

(Bhatta B, 2010),  and as a result, the demographic transition is the most 

influential reason of urban growth in all countries (Shaheen L, 2013) 

(Dyson T, 2011). 

Although, cities became more congested with spread of diseases 

where governments were not able to upgrade sewage and water systems to 

cope with the high populated areas in that time in addition to the lack of 



33 

housing as well as the spread of social problems (Khamaisi R, 1997) 

(Wilson S, 2015) (Cohen B, 2006) (Bhatta B, 2010) (McCatty M, 2014) 

(McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014). On the other hand, rapid 

continuous immigrations and rapid urban growth are the major driving 

forces to unmanaged and unplanned urban expansion all over the world and 

especially in developing countries (McCatty M, 2014)(Cohen B, 2006) 

where open and public space are becoming less and we ended up with cities 

of stones only (Pacione M, 2009). 

All over the world, informal settlements and shanty towns started to 

appear in parallel to the high migration rates and lack of affordable housing 

(McCatty M, 2014) (McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014), where 

only in developing countries 30 to 70 percent of settlements are informal 

settlements in irregular pattern, which are either authorized or unregistered 

or not approved from government to be a part of the development in the 

government’s agenda (Lupala J, 2002). Because Arab world is a part of 

developing countries, the informal constructions here are also either 

unregistered properties or constructed over agricultural or sensitive 

environmental areas as a result of unmanaged urbanization, which led  to 

“urban sprawl” and to enormous problems which related to crimes and 

unsafe social environment due to the high congestion rates in cities which 

in many cases are difficult to control which exaggerate conflicts, social 

problems and rural poverty (Schäfer K, 2013)(Cohen B, 2006)(McCatty M, 

2014) (McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014)(Wilson S, 2015)(Bhatta 

B, 2010)(UN-Habitat, 2012). 



34 

Moreover,  rapid unplanned urbanization have other consequences 

like climate change, excessive consumption of water sources which also 

will affect the biodiversity and ecosystems  all over the world (Wilson S, 

2015) (McGranahan G and Satterthwaite D, 2014) (Brown L, Gray R, 

Hughes R and Meador M, 2005) (Cohen B, 2006) as well as harmful 

consequence on environment causing degradation and drought (Schäfer K, 

2013). Thus, urban sprawl cause excessive consumption of resources and 

destruction of open and agricultural lands (Bhatta B, 2010) due to the 

conversion of agricultural lands into urban lands which harms environment 

and ecosystems (AbuHafeetha M, 2014)(Shaheen L, 2013)(Freire M, 

2006). 

2.2 Urban Sprawl and Beyond 

The phenomenon of urbanization and its consequences played a 

major role in changing the urban transformation of cities and population 

settlements, where urbanization in developed countries caused 

suburbanization where urban cities became congested and many health and 

social problems appeared, so suburbanization “which can be also called 

decentralization” considered in that time as a solution by pushing the 

population outside cities, but those expansions where not well managed and 

resulted “urban sprawl”. In the other hand, in developing countries the 

urbanization itself was the main cause behind the urban sprawl where the 

rapid urbanization was unmanaged and unplanned. Thus, after 1950, 

suburbanization appeared in developed countries which created sprawl, 



35 

while urbanization appeared in developing countries which led to urban 

sprawl (Ottensmann J, 1977) (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014).As a result, urban 

sprawl is closely associated with urbanization regardless the different 

countries’ characteristics, (Bekele H, 2005). 

Despite the importance of urban sprawl phenomenon, but still there 

is no consensus or general agreement upon the definition of what urban 

sprawl is. But basically, urban sprawl can be defined as “a pattern of land-

use or land cover change in which the rate at which land is converted for 

development exceeds the population growth rate over a specified time 

period” (Bekele H, 2005), while others defined urban sprawl as the 

conversion of large amount of lands from agricultural lands into urban 

lands of low density development where density is considered as the tool to 

measure sprawl (Anthony J, 2004) and others defined it as a scattered and 

inefficient urban growth (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki O, 2012) 

(Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). 

Urban sprawl is also defined as the land use as urban area of low 

density, lack of continuity with the already existing urban fabric, low 

concentration levels where developments spread evenly, lack of 

compactness, lack of centrality, multi-nuclei development patterns, low 

levels of mixed land uses, low levels of proximity where the different land 

uses are not close to each other (Anthony J, 2004) (Bekele H, 2005) 

(Shahraki S, Sauri D, Serra P, Modugno S, Seifolddini F and Pourahmad 

A, 2011) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki O, 2012) (Al-Tarawneh 



36 

W, 2014). These definitions are completely fit to the developed countries 

urban sprawl, but to some extent it is not completely matching the urban 

sprawl in developing countries, although there is no specific definition for 

urban sprawl in developing countries. For that, the discussion in this 

section is discussing urban sprawl in developed countries more than the 

urban sprawl in developing countries because not much studies were about 

developing countries, and the lack of resources, where the sprawl 

phenomenon considered as a recent phenomenon in developing countries 

compared to developed countries, and thus more data is available on 

developed countries rather than developing countries. 

Wherefore, urban sprawl’s indicators vary according to regions and 

territories, including exaggerated land consumption an instrumental change 

in cities’ urban transformation and cities expansion as well as commanding 

the variations in the land-use patterns (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) (Bekele H, 

2005) (Bhatta B, 2010) which strongly affected the urban transformation of 

these cities. Urban sprawl caused by unplanned land-uses with insufficient 

urban laws and land policies and the concentration on roads investments 

and socio-economic factors (Bekele H, 2005). As a result, urban sprawl is 

considered one of the main global challenges of the Twenty-First Century 

(Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki O, 2012) specially due to its 

consequence in terms of the dramatic loss in the agricultural lands which 

became an alarming phenomena for the whole world, either if the countries 

are developed or less developed (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) (Adaku E, 2014) 



37 

(Gadakh B and Jaybhaye R, 2015) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki 

O, 2012) (Wilson B and Chakraborty A, 2013). 

2.2.1 Urban Sprawl Concept and Trends 

Spatially, urban sprawl is considered as a dynamic phenomenon 

(Hasse J and Lathrop R,  2003) (Gadakh B and Jaybhaye R, 2015) and has 

been one of the most important consequences of rapid urbanization since 

the World War II in the shape of suburbs (Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004) 

in developed countries like USA, Canada and European countries during 

1950s, while currently the wave of urban sprawl reached many developing 

countries, which reached large, medium and even small cities all around the 

world (Shahraki S, Sauri D, Serra P, Modugno S, Seifolddini F and 

Pourahmad A, 2011) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki O, 2012). 

Basically, Urban sprawl term is used to describe the geographical 

expansion for the sake of particular developments at the expense of 

agricultural lands (Stan A, 2013), where many agricultural lands were 

converted into other urban land-uses (Anthony J, 2004) (European 

Environment Agency, 2006). Urban sprawl is also defined by scattered 

separated new land developments and urban land-uses (Ottensmann, J, 

1977) (Gadakh B and Jaybhaye R, 2015). Urban sprawl have basic forms 

and development patterns which are considered as the characteristics of 

urban sprawl and they are either caused by physical terrains, or unsuitable 

planning or the lack of control over urban developments (ARIJ, 2004). 



38 

Low-density development 

Scattered uncontrolled 

development 

Leapfrog development 

Al-Bireh CityStrip/ribbon 

development 

For that, urban sprawl forms (Figure 2.2) are considered as part of 

the characteristics of urban sprawl which are four main forms (Figure 2.2): 

low-density, strip, scattered, and leapfrog development (Pendall R, 

1999)(Adaku E, 2014)(Bekele H, 2005)(Anthony J, 2004). Although these 

characteristics cannot be considered as measurements because what is 

important in about urban sprawl forms is not the patterns of development 

themselves but the impacts and the directions of these patterns (Pendall R, 

1999). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure (2.2) Forms of Urban Sprawl - (Owusu G, 2013) 

Low-density pattern refers to the low rise buildings in large plots due 

to the cheap land costs in the suburbs; strip development refers to the 

allocation of settlements align with the transportation or river arteries; 

while the scattered uncontrolled development refers to the unmanaged and 

unrolled outward expansion caused by the weakness of zoning and 

planning and policies; and last the leapfrog refers to the unsustainable 



39 

jumping developments which ignore the greenbelts and growth boundaries 

(Owusu G, 2013) where all of these sprawl forms led to uncontrolled and 

exaggerated consumption of lands specially the agricultural lands where the 

unmanaged urban growth, didn’t only caused huge loss of agricultural 

lands (Bekele H, 2005) (Pendall R, 1999) (Brunner A, 2012), but also 

increased pollution and excessive consumption of resources, which 

increase health and social problem, and became a challenge for the whole 

world especially for developing countries (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) (Bekele 

H, 2005) (Pendall R, 1999). 

For that the Influential forces behind urban sprawl played a major 

role in creating the urban sprawl characteristics and forms. These forces 

are: physical, socio-economic and political factors as well as the 

interactions of these forces together, lead to the urban sprawl phenomenon 

(Bekele H, 2005). 

• Physical Factors 

The unsuitable physical terrain like the wetlands, water bodies, 

mineral lands and rugged terrain, lead to urban sprawl (Figure 2.3) (Al-

Tarawneh W, 2014) (Bhatta B, 2010). Therefore, new developments try to 

avoid these unsuitable geographical terrains due to the high cost for that 

settlements try to avoid these places due to the high cost to be incurred for 

infrastructure services supplies, and prefer agricultural lands which are 

easier to supply services and lower in cost (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). 



40 

It’s worth mentioning here, that the unsuitable geographical terrains 

obstacles are difficult to overcome for that many settlements ignored these 

terrains and scattered around in an unmanaged way because nothing could 

be done, but overlooking these terrains as shown above in (Figure 2.3) 

(Bhatta B, 2010). 

 

Figure (2.3:) Unsuitable physical terrain prohibits continuous development - 

(Bhatta B, 2010)] 

• Socio-economic factors 

They played a major role in the dynamism urban sprawl and the 

movement of urban population in the whole world (Adaku E, 2014), 

especially when it is related to housing issue, where the lack of affordable 

housing in urban areas pushed the population to move out from the city 

centers and create their settlements in the countryside and forming suburbs 

(Bhatta B, 2010) (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) (Anthony J, 2004). Although, 

wealthy people moved to countryside not because they are pushed to move, 



41 

but they preferred to move and have bigger houses with backyards. For 

both poor and wealthy people, the land values also played an important role 

in sprawl with the distribution and uses of land which can form the type of 

development and expansion (Ottensmann, J, 1977). 

Thus, there’s an inverse relationship between rates of urban sprawl 

and land prices, where the lower price of the land is, the more urban sprawl 

occurs (Pendall R, 1999). Especially in developed countries, people were 

able to buy their private cars while private automobile became dominance 

in the transportation, and the rise of cars ownership with the rapid 

constructions of roads increased suburbanization and resulted sprawl and 

facilitated the movements between neighborhoods and the separate zones 

of residential, commercial or offices zones (Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004) 

(Anthony J, 2004) (Bhatta B, 2010) (Bekele H, 2005). 

• Political Factors 

The separation of socio-economic operations from urban planning 

bodies due to the conflicts of interest, as well as the lack of coordination 

between them and the lack of centralized and organized powers and 

planning control resulting regulations problems and affect the decision-

making process and the output of laws (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) (Anthony J, 

2004), especially when there’s lack of clear land regulations, parallel to the 

excessive land zoning regulations, where the lack of clear land regulation 

created illegal and irregular forms of expansion, while the strict land 

zoning and lack of clear land-use regulations which created illegal and 



42 

irregular settlements, the strict land zoning regulations has created totally 

separate land-uses (residential, offices, commercial, industrial, and other 

land-uses) which resulted low density expansions which at the end all 

together created urban sprawl (Bhatta, 2010)(Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) 

(Zeković S, Vujošević M, Bolay J, Cvetinović M, Miljković  J and Maričić 

T, 2015)(Anthony J, 2004). 

Therefore, the land-use laws have heavily impacted rural areas and 

their structure, starting with the development of rural residential buildings 

and ending with urban sprawl and the loss of large tracts of rural and 

agricultural lands (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). Moreover, the lack of 

coordination between the different governmental and institutional of 

planning in developing countries are contributed to inflate the rate of urban 

sprawl (Owusu G, 2013), especially when their decisions are not matching 

with the future needs and demands for urban development (Bhatta, 2010) 

(Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). Due to the lack of coordination and the loose of 

governmental planning control especially in countryside, the situation 

became worse by the residents’ ignorance of legislations and regulations 

within the absence of planning control in developing countries (Al-

Tarawneh W, 2014). Specially in developed countries, urban sprawl is 

widely considered as low-density, scattered exclusive land-uses (Bekele H, 

2005)(Hasse J and Lathrop R, 2003)(Adaku E, 2014) (Gadakh B and 

Jaybhaye R, 2015)(Anthony J, 2004)(Siedentop S and Fina S, 

2008)(European Environment Agency, 2006), as well as the high rates 

private car ownership (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki O, 2012) 



43 

and the increase of residential areas with separate land-uses at the suburbs, 

are considered as the main characteristics of urban sprawl in the developed 

countries. 

Although there are many similarities between urban sprawl in 

developed and developing countries like the danger of sprawl on 

agricultural lands, but not all of the terms of urban sprawl in developed 

countries are applicable in developing countries which have different 

factors and characteristics, and for here comes the difficulty of generalizing 

the forms and characteristics of urban sprawl in all over the world (Wilson 

B and Chakraborty A, 2013), and this is essential to know in the case of 

looking for remedies of sprawl, the solutions those proposed in developed 

countries cannot be applicable in developing countries and the following 

sections are going to highlight the sprawl in developed and developing 

countries in details. Although the references on urban sprawl in developing 

countries considered few due to the lack of data compared to developed 

countries. 

2.2.2 Urban Sprawl in Developed Countries 

As discussed in the previous part, the movement of suburbanization 

and decentralization boomed during 1950s, which are two sides of the same 

coin where the development moved outward the city centers and created 

new outskirts in the countryside which created urban sprawl. 

Although, historically, cities expansions and developments were 

related to population growth, it is not the case in urban sprawl and the 



44 

population growth is not related to sprawling anymore, and the population 

chose to look for new lifestyles, so they moved away from city centers and 

created low-density settlements which are the suburbs (European 

Environment Agency, 2006). For that, decentralization and urban sprawl 

which considered as intensive dispute between planning bodies, 

researchers, decision makers, and the general public (Owusu G, 2013). 

Regardless the population growth, all urban sprawl forms can be 

either low-density residential land-use development, or like edge cities 

which basically considered for offices and as business districts which 

aligned to transportation routes, rivers or parks , or scattered with 

discontinuity in development, or at last can be in the form of enclaves like 

leapfrogs over agricultural and rural lands while leaving adjacent lands 

totally empty, which considered as a serious indicator of the unmanaged 

and irregular urban growth (European Environment Agency, 

2006)(Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004) and any of the urban sprawl forms 

can occur regardless the size of the city (Shahraki S, Sauri D, Serra P, 

Modugno S, Seifolddini F and Pourahmad A, 2011) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi 

A and Mobaraki O, 2012). 

In the last decades, inner cities were the core of many problems, 

starting from poverty, unemployment, congested settlements, health, 

environment and social problems of drugs, crimes and other safety 

problems which pushed people specially families to move out to the 

periphery of cities specially due to the low prices of agricultural lands 



45 

(European Environment Agency, 2006) to find better air quality, more 

green areas, better schools for their kids, less crimes and more safety, less 

noise and bigger households which suburbs act like magnets specifically 

for families (Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004) (European Environment 

Agency, 2006). So, the consumers preferences caused urban sprawl 

(European Environment Agency, 2006) (Shahraki S, Sauri D, Serra P, 

Modugno S, Seifolddini F and Pourahmad A, 2011) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi 

A and Mobaraki O, 2012) (Bhatta B, 2010) (European Environment 

Agency, 2006) in addition to the preferences for local taxes and more 

amenities such as backyards with swimming pools, and more open spaces 

(Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004) (European Environment Agency, 2006). 

The rising of living standards for residents is as a result of the economic 

growth due to globalization which resulted in increasing the private cars 

ownership and the massive roads constructions as well as the drop of fuel 

costs especially in USA and caused decentralization (European 

Environment Agency, 2006). 

Moreover, the economic growth, rapidly increased the establishment 

of new factories industries and the shift of the old ones outside the city 

centers, because factories mostly need huge spaces, as well as housing for 

the employees of the countryside factories where the prices of rural 

agricultural lands are low compared to urban lands which consumed more 

rural lands excessively in uncontrolled patterns (European Environment 

Agency, 2006) (Bhatta B, 2010). As a result,  this caused urban sprawl 

which is excessively consuming from agricultural lands around 3,000 sq. 



46 

Km  per year in the developed countries  (Gadakh B and Jaybhaye R, 2015) 

due to uncontrolled and unmanaged expansions as a result of the weak 

land-use planning regulations and the poor enforcement in the countryside 

as well as the poor implementation of the existing plans as well as the lack 

of coordination between planning bodies, government and lack of 

collaboration between them and the citizens (European Environment 

Agency, 2006). 

Although the economic growth which increased the income disparity 

between population which created decentralization, but instead of 

considering the decentralization as a solution for urbanization problems, it 

also created unresolved equation which is urban sprawl’s impacts of more 

social problems where obviously, sprawling cities dismantle the structure 

of the society and community into two parts, according to socio-economic 

factors; where the first part considered as very crowded and contested 

places in the city exclusively for the poor, and the second part considered 

as areas with low-density scattered settlements in the periphery of the city 

exclusively for high-income people and the final composition of the city 

become a heterogeneous combination between the segments of society 

(Bhatta B, 2010). 

Governments in developed countries recognized that urban sprawl 

poses more harms than benefits and considered as unsustainable, so Unites 

States of America as well as many other developed countries imposed sets 

of regulation and proposed a range of development solutions, such as New 



47 

Urbanism and Growth Management but it seems these were not effective 

enough so urban sprawl is still exist in United States of America and many 

other developed countries and will continue in the future if there is no 

powerful implementation (Brunner A, 2012). 

So, if this is the case in developed countries, then the situation can be 

worse in developing countries due to the lack of powerful planning control 

and lack of policies which is considered as one of the most influential 

causes of urban sprawl. 

2.2.3 Urban Sprawl in Developing Countries 

Although the rapid urbanization created slight economic progress in 

many developing countries (Gadakh B and Jaybhaye R, 2015) but still the 

economy is weak to attract investors and developers to inner cities (Martine 

G, 2011), and poor to expand vertically, for that expanding horizontally is 

more dominant because they rural lands are cheaper where many of these 

horizontal expansions occurred in unmanaged way which created urban 

sprawl (Bekele H., 2005). 

However, lower land prices outside the city played an important role 

in creating the phenomenon of urban sprawl in developing countries  

(Owusu G, 2013) (Shahraki S, Sauri D, Serra P, Modugno S, Seifolddini F 

and Pourahmad A, 2011) as it attracts investors and developers to buy 

outside the city in addition to the poor urban planning systems and the 

weak economic market which led to dramatic widespread speculation in 



48 

land prices, so developers chose the areas those are between the inner city 

and rural areas and they seek to buy these lands because they think the 

prices will rise in the future due to the speculation of these lands as a result 

of their proximity to city center and the rapid population growth (Owusu G, 

2013). Thus, urban sprawl in developing countries created a unique 

character of city structure (Figure 2.4), which the city is consisted of the 

city center which is congested, suburban areas, and peri-urban areas 

(Brunner A, 2012). 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Figure (2.4): Schematic Diagram Urban Structure of a Developing Country’s City 

(Veríssimo C, 2014) 

The suburban areas and peri-urban areas are considered as forms and 

they also considered main contrasting urban sprawl types (Brunner A, 

2012), because the first form “suburban areas” is characterized by scattered 

low density residential areas with luxurious commercial services but not 

mixed land-uses created for wealthy people and served by streets for 



49 

private automobiles only instead of public transportation (Torres H, 2011) 

(Brunner A, 2012), while the other form is “peri-urban areas” which only 

poor people move to these areas (Torres H, 2011)(Brunner A, 2012) which 

are located between the city and rural areas and characterized by lower 

density than the city center but higher than suburbs and mixed land-uses 

(Torres H, 2011), irregular forms and informal land-uses (Larson R and 

Varol N, 2003) (Torres H, 2011) (Brunner A, 2012), and the whole peri-

urban areas suffer from poverty in terms of poor infrastructure, insufficient 

accessible roads, degradation of life conditions with inadequate basic 

services (Bhatta B, 2010) (Torres H, 2011) (Brunner A, 2012) (Larson R 

and Varol N, 2003). 

However, where most of these informal settlements and land uses in 

developing countries can be found in the inner city and in the peri-urban 

areas which considered as the periphery of the city (Torres H, 2011) 

(Bhatta B, 2010) and considered as consequences of rapid urbanization in 

the shape of urban sprawl (Bolay J, 2004) (Moreno E and Mboup G, 2011). 

Actually in developing countries, between 25 to 75 percent (Bolay J, 2004) 

and one out of three urban residents live in illegal and irregular settlements 

(Moreno E and Mboup G, 2011),which means the majority of urban sprawl 

form is in the shape of slums that are located in peri-urban areas. 

The poor urban planning systems in these countries and the lack of 

authorities to predict the future expansions, and the lack of implantations 

enforcements led to excessive urban sprawl in addition to the exclusive 



50 

land-uses policies which were taken from developed countries as they are 

because of colonization, separating the lands into separate land which are 

not suitable for the case of developing countries in addition to the 

unsuccessful and ineffectual enforcement of these land uses on the ground 

(Bhatta B, 2010) (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) (Brunner A, 2012)  as well as the 

lack of physical and financial resources with the absence of clear strategic 

plans, where all of these have worked on  creating urban sprawl in 

developing countries  (Freire M, 2006). 

As a result, urban sprawl varies between developing and developed 

countries, although it is created because of decentralization in developed 

countries, but urban sprawl in developing countries is created by 

urbanization (Ottensmann J, 1977), where most of cities are continued 

sprawling until nowadays an unplanned and irregular patterns and the 

sprawl increased due to the continuous rapid urbanization (Abu Helu M, 

2012) (Shahraki S, Sauri D, Serra P, Modugno S, Seifolddini F and 

Pourahmad A, 2011). However, urban sprawl increased after the 

construction of  highways and transportation routes (Shahraki S, Sauri D, 

Serra P, Modugno S, Seifolddini F and Pourahmad A, 2011),where the 

urban sprawl in developed countries followed transportation routes, but the 

difference here is in developed countries the transportation routes are 

planned but in developing countries the transportation routes themselves 

are not planned and the sprawling settlements became more unsystematic 

and random patterns (Bekele H, 2005)(Shahraki S, Sauri D, Serra P, 

Modugno S, Seifolddini F and Pourahmad A, 2011). 



51 

Moreover, urban sprawl in developing countries is not always 

characterized by low-density suburbs (Martine G, 2011)(Freire M, 2006), 

and automobile privatization like the developed countries, and not caused 

by the preferences for new lifestyles of people to move out of the city to the 

periphery of the city (Martine G, 2011). Although, rich people in 

developing countries moved outside for their preferences but they are little 

portion compared to the poor population, because the majority of 

developing countries while one out of five live below the national poverty 

line (Larson R and Varol N, 2003). Thus, the majority of people in 

developing countries did not move to the suburbs for luxurious lifestyles 

like in developed countries (Bekele H, 2005) (Bahatta B, 2010) where the 

poor population pushed to move out to get the necessary needs of spaces 

specially there is no more space enough for the population in the inner 

cities due to the rapid unmanaged urbanization and limited housing options 

for them, so here the population growth has it is impact in sprawling cities 

of the developing countries but not the sole main cause of urban sprawl 

(Brunner A, 2012) (Adaku E, 2014) (Gadakh B and Jaybhaye R, 2015). 

The inadequate services, unplanned expansion, and informal 

settlements caused by urbanization are basic features of urban sprawl in 

developing countries which are shared with the Occupied Palestinian 

Territories because it is already part of developing countries (Abu Helu M, 

2012). Although the Palestinian situation is considered a unique situation in 

the world especially due to the political situation and the planning practices 



52 

which were controlled by external forces for a long period not by 

Palestinians themselves (Abdelhamid A, 2006). 

2.2.4 Urban Sprawl Impacts and Consequences 

Although the forms and causes of urban sprawl in the world vary 

between countries, but most of the world’s countries share the same 

consequences of sprawl but in varied rates. The urban sprawl around the 

world has serious losses (Bhatta B, 2010) but also decentralization has 

positive consequences mostly in developed countries. Decentralization 

caused higher economic outputs when cheap land is opened for factories 

for example, and created more opportunities for employment as well as 

better sanitation and infrastructure services where these rich countries can 

afford for new better infrastructure, in addition to provide better lifestyles 

compared to city center (Bhatta B, 2010) (Owusu G, 2013). Moreover, 

decentralization provided better houses with bigger spaces, private 

backyards and better schools as well as the suburbs have lower crime rates 

and better air quality and lower in noise and pollution compared to city 

center (Owusu G, 2013). 

On the other hand, the rapid urban growth outside cities went out of 

the governments’ control, including developed countries governments, due 

to the lack of urban planning development and the loose control over urban 

growth which resulted urban sprawl and considered as a harmful 

phenomenon which excessively consume land, energy, water, and other 

natural resources (Bhatta B, 2010) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki 



53 

O, 2012) in addition to the dramatic loss in open spaces and agricultural 

lands which considered one of the most dangerous consequences of urban 

sprawl (Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004). As a result, a major negative 

tendency towards urban sprawl has been appeared in the late of Twentieth 

Century (Brunner A, 2012), due to the harmful costs of urban sprawl at the 

economic, environmental, and social levels (Bhatta B, 2010) (Shahraki S, 

Sauri D, Serra P, Modugno S, Seifolddini F and Pourahmad A, 2011). 

• Economic costs 

Services and infrastructure for the low-density scattered urban 

developments are very high in expenses compared to inner cities 

(Siedentop S and Fina S, 2008) (Bhatta B, 2010) (Owusu G, 2013) which 

means more schools, police stations, fire stations,  hospitals, wires, cables, 

pipes,  and more waste and recyclables collection services (Bhatta B, 

2010), as well as a high cost must be paid to provide roads and highways 

(Bhatta B, 2010)(Al-Tarawneh W, 2014),  to cope with the high rates of 

private car ownerships and other vehicles which are essential in low density 

developments (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). As a result, higher costs of services 

and infrastructure led to higher tax burdens (Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004) 

(Bekele H, 2005) (Owusu G, 2013). 

• Environmental costs 

Sprawl imposed a major threat on availability of land and other 

natural resources (Bekele H, 2005) (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) (Hasse J and 



54 

Lathrop R, 2003)(Larson R and Varol N, 2003) (European Environment 

Agency, 2006). Urban sprawl also destroyed many wetlands and woodlands 

for the sack of expansion which caused a major loss in the wildlife habitat 

(Bekele H, 2005) (Bhatta B, 2010) (Brunner A, 2012) (Al-Tarawneh W, 

2014) (European Environment Agency, 2006) which as a result changed the 

ecosystems patterns (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014), in addition to the loss of 

farmlands, open spaces and agricultural lands (Bekele H, 2005)(Bhatta B, 

2010)(Owusu G, 2013)(European Environment Agency, 2006) where these 

lands were converted into urban lands (Bhatta B, 2010) (Brunner A, 2012) 

(Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). 

So the conversion of agricultural lands into urban lands led to 

dramatic consumption and changes in the soil properties and reduced its 

capacity to perform its fundamental functions (European Environment 

Agency, 2006)which affected the national food security due to the reduced 

food productions (Bhatta B, 2010) (Brunner A, 2012) (Al-Tarawneh W, 

2014). Urban sprawl also excessively consume raw materials, natural 

resources and energy (Bekele H, 2005) (European Environment Agency, 

2006) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki O, 2012) in addition to 

producing pollution and energy wastes (Martine G, 2011) (Larson R and 

Varol N, 2003) (Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004) Bhatta B, 2010) (Al-

Tarawneh W, 2014), and affecting air quality (Nechyba J and Walsh R, 

2004) (Bhatta B, 2010) (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014) (Owusu G, 2013) 

(European Environment Agency, 2006) as well as greenhouse gas 

emissions due to the increased travel distances and lengths as well as the 



55 

increase in fuel consumption of the large number of private cars(Nechyba J 

and Walsh R, 2004) (Bekele H, 2005) (Bhatta B, 2010). 

These emissions are contributed in climate change where 

temperatures becoming higher (Bhatta B, 2010)(European Environment 

Agency, 2006) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki O, 2012), and so 

urban sprawl leads to higher temperatures (Bhatta B, 2010)(Al-Tarawneh 

W, 2014 ) and threaten the natural and rural environments (European 

Environment Agency, 2006) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A and Mobaraki O, 

2012) and increased the rates of river and coastal flooding (European 

Environment Agency, 2006) and also affects water quality and quantity 

(Bekele H, 2005) (European Environment Agency, 2006) (Al-Tarawneh W, 

2014)(Bhatta B, 2010) while all of these will affect the overall life style of 

people (European Environment Agency, 2006) (Mohammadi J, Zarabi A 

and Mobaraki O, 2012) and we can say it may threaten the future 

generations’ lives. 

• Social Costs 

Most of social problems here are in developed countries where urban 

sprawl leads to inhomogeneous community structure and imbalances  

(Bekele H, 2005) Shahraki S, Sauri D, Serra P, Modugno S, Seifolddini F 

and Pourahmad A, 2011) (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). Suburbs are pulling only 

rich people to bring them away from poor people to separate between poor 

and rich people as well as between rich and middle class people, which 

create inequality and segregations (Bekele H, 2005) (Al-Tarawneh W, 



56 

2014), as well as social spatial isolation between the rich community itself 

due to low-density developments where houses are far from each other 

(Bekele H, 2005) (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). However the backyards for the 

houses of suburbs increased the community disintegration, where for 

instance instead of going to public parks where people could meet and 

interact, the backyards tend to prevent the interaction between neighbors 

(Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). As a result, the low-density developments and the 

low population density will lead the residents to lose their sense of 

community (Bhatta B, 2010) (Nechyba J and Walsh R, 2004) where not 

only social problems appear clearly in developed countries but also urban 

sprawl made people less active not only socially, but also physically and 

people became fatter and sicker (Al-Tarawneh W, 2014). Although most of 

the mentioned urban sprawl cost are concentrating on the developed 

countries case at the expense of developing countries due to the lack of 

references about urban sprawl in developing countries, but in general urban 

sprawl costs are more harmful in developing countries especially in 

Palestine where the case is worse. 

• Summary 

Urbanization affected the urban trans