English abstract
Since the 1970s, researchers have studied various aspects of humanistic geography,
including the sense of place and people's relationship to it. One of the most significant
initiatives that help to transform cities into desirable locations for living, as well as a
hub for interaction between people, built and natural environments in cities, is the
development and beautification projects.
The main goal of the study was to improve a theoretical framework to analyze the
success of development and beautification projects in Sur city in enhancing the sense
of place in the urban environment in the Sultanate of Oman. It, also, aims to analyze
the tangible and intangible components of those projects. Moreover, it aims to analyze
the effectiveness of development and beautification projects' role in enhancing the
interaction in public places and people's behavior in these projects. Analytical
descriptive approach was used to find and adopt suitable indicators to evaluate the
sense of place. This analysis led to extracting 12 criteria to evaluate the effectiveness
of the projects. In addition, this study relies on censuses, statistical publications, and
Observation. The study used In-depth semi-guided interviews with 17 citizens and
questionnaires that were distributed to 283 residents who frequently visit the
development and beautification projects.
The study's findings show that all projects had a high sense of place according to the
mean values. In the three projects, place identity takes the highest value than place
attachment and dependence indicators. However, the results of the three indicators
showed that some criteria need to be developed and improved, such as the familiarity
and vitality criteria, as well as some gaps in some aspects of planning for the urban
fabric that surrounds these projects. This study also supported the idea that Sur's
characteristics such as the natural environment and the history of maritime navigation
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played crucial roles in identifying the place's functional, social, cultural, and
emotional values. The study recommended that the functional components of these
projects should be developed and revitalized. Furthermore, local participation
processes and urban development and renewal projects should be activated beside the
city's various social groups.
