The Role of Waterfronts in Improving the Quality of Urban Life «The case of the city of Latakia»

Abstract

It has became a common agreement in modern cities today that elevating the quality of life expressed in public spaces is a guarantee of successful urban planning in general. In this regard, the research highlights on study of urban waterfront. During the past decades, and for various reasons, port facilities moved away from urban centers in many parts of the world. This has left a large area of ​​land close to central areas in cities available for intervention and development.

These possibilities have been a catalyst for a large number of theoretical studies that produced a set of functional, architectural, planning, visual, environmental, and social criteria and have become a regulatory form for the study of waterfront projects. This is evident in the study of the Kop van Zuid projects in Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Haven City Hamburg (Germany), which has been used as a model for global reference studies.

This paper aims to think of ways to improve the quality of urban life by reaching economically, socially and environmentally sustainable findings about relations between water and Latakia City. This is done by analyzing the current conditions in the city based on internationally set criteria, then to come up with recommendations to achieve the said goal.