Urban form and sustainability in historic cities

Abstract

This paper discusses the issue of sustainable urban form in the old neighbourhoods in the centre of Erbil city. These traditional districts preserved their urban form throughout the past two centuries. During the last few decades, however, with growing population and the increased number of cars, they have lost much of their former appeal. This paper evaluates the general aspects of sustainable urban form and then analyses the two old neighbourhoods as case studies. A descriptive and interpretative method was adopted to analyse and identify the aspects of sustainability in this area. Finally, the article concludes that the urban form of these districts has a high potential for sustainability and the reasons why they are currently unattractive are mainly due to bad management.