Urban Resilience in the Sustainable Urban Regeneration of Historic City Centers

Abstract

Historic centers are a physiological structure that represents the development of the city and its historical and cultural life. It is the most attractive and visible part of the city's fabric, as well as bearing the burden and the greatest pressure of the city's expansion. These centers have been subjected to a range of influences that have affected their structure and function and led to their degradation, and eventually impacted the urban form, the urban function, and the accessibility to this vital and important part of the city. This was reflected on the spatial use and quality of life of the residents and visitors. Environmental strategies, including the ecological, the green and the sustainable, have played a prominent role in improving the historical center environment within the context of sustainable urban regeneration. However, they failed to reach the optimal status of the historical center as a whole, resulting in unsustainable outcomes. This required the emergence of a new strategy dealing with the city center’s integrated environment, represented by the Urban Resilience. Thus, the research problem was identified by the lack of knowledge concerning the characteristics and indicators of sustainable urban regeneration in accordance with the strategy of urban resilience and its role in improving the quality of life and enhancing the spatial attraction of historical city centers.The research concluded the importance of urban resilience strategy in the environmental-physical dimension, and its role in addressing the urban problems of the historical center environment through targeting diversity in urban form, urban efficiency and urban flow to create a spatial environment that accommodates the inhabitants and achieves their well-being.