Cities Dynamics as a Tool to Assess the Urban Planning Approach Suitability for Egyptian Cities

Egypt widely turned its planning approach from comprehensive to strategic planning without considering the characteristics of cities. One of the main characteristics is city dynamics which is used as a tool to assess the suitability of the urban planning approach. Eighteen indicators are extracted as dynamic indicators measured to cover the demographic, social, and economic dimensions, and only four indicators are available in the Egyptian context due to the lack of data in developing countries. All indicators were collected for the time frame from 1986 to 2006 as a time before SPA implementation. The pre-implementation test was planned to run depending on SPSS, but it could not consider the negative as well as the positive changes as a type of dynamics. Static analysis divided indicators depending on their special value into three negative and three positive categories. For each city, the value was collected as the strong and moderate change together and the weak and no change together. Out of 56 cities, 45 are suitable for strategic planning, with a percentage of 80%. Around 11 cities are not suitable for using the strategic planning approach; those cities do not follow the same pattern of city size, economic or administrative role. The post-implementation results match the pre-implementation results as the city of Kafr El-Sheikh mostly exceeded the plan targets, which confirms the high dynamic of the city, contrary to Matria city, which is classified as a city with no dynamic, after comparing the 2027 strategic plan targets with the recent 2024 situation.