The Center of Urban and Regional Planning for Postgraduate Studies at the University of Baghdad discussed a master’s thesis entitled (The Urban Space in the Centers of Old Cities between the Requirements of the Tourist and the Resident) by the researcher Muhammad Hussein Abd Mahdi Al-Maamar, and under the supervision of Dr. Ihsan Sabah.
The researcher discussed the inability of urban spaces in old city centers to provide the requirements of the population at the present time, and thus the relationship between the resident and the tourist was highlighted in order to reach the most important requirements for them to determine the main reasons that lead to the emergence of the research problem, and try to find effective solutions to avoid these problems in the future. The thesis concluded that the process of providing accommodation facilities as part of the tourist’s requirements led to the resident’s loss of a set of requirements within the space such as privacy, social interaction, local identity, as well as belonging.
The researcher presented a number of recommendations, represented in the need to take into account the relationship between the tourist and the resident when preparing urban renewal projects for old city centers such as Najaf, with an emphasis on the involvement of residents in the planning, design and implementation process to ensure the preservation of their requirements within urban spaces.
