This article reflects on Khartoum’s sit-in space in front of the Army headquarter in Khartoum during Sudan’s Nile Spring. The article explores the public discourses, activities, and space transformation during the sit-in, which lasted fifty-eight days. Through studying the sit-in, we aim to discuss how the Nile Spring has, or has not, transformed the conception of what a public space is by examining the functions and activities of the sit-in space as a territory of political exercise. The methodology underlying this research includes direct and participant observation, a follow-up of the sit-in space activities on various media sources, a literature review, and interviews. The conclusions drawn by this article show how the sit-in space has challenged the current relationship between public space and the political ideology by providing a new example of what a public space is. The sit-in space succeeded in revolutionizing the understanding of how public spaces should be imagined, designed, appropriated, and managed. This inquiry has disclosed the necessity to rethink current planning and urban design processes that restrict democratic activities in public spaces.

Over the past hundred years, Greater Khartoum witnessed five urban planning schemes. Those were the Mclean Plan of 1910, Doxiadis Plan of 1958, MEFIT Plan of 1974, Doxiadis and AM Mustafa Plan of 1991, and MEFIT and CENTECS Plan of 2008. Commissioned by national or sub-national governments in order to direct the growth and development of Greater Khartoum for an average of one to two decades each, those master plans addressed primarily its land use, housing and transportation issues. Little attention was paid to environmental issues and a few proposals were put forward to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of urbanisation and to enhance the positive environmental qualities of Greater Khartoum but those were not fully implemented due to lack of funds and political commitment. The result has been a dismal environmental quality in Khartoum, and grave environmental problems besieging the city today.This paper reviews the urbanisation trends in Greater Khartoum, analyses the previous master plans prepared for it and investigates why they failed to address the emergent environmental issues and to cultivate the rich natural assets the city is endowed with. It points the way to alternative approaches and measures that need to be adopted by public authorities and civil society associations to address this situation.

The waterfront is the source of human civilization, culture, and the economy. A lot of beings depend on water for the life cycle in which humankind is no exception. Today, the entire human civilization is diligently associated with water areas such as rivers, seas, and oceans because they support sustainable transportation, habitat, and living. Such association is what brands waterfronts as one of the significant and useful urban regeneration concepts for cities and regions. Nonetheless, despite the attention has been assumed to Khartoum riverfront in the last two decades, the city is still unable to utilize it in terms of spatial capacities, environmental assets, and socio-cultural values. This article introduces a concept through which the riverfront assets of the city of Khartoum can be utilized and appropriated to improve the quality of it is riverfront. The objective of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework of riverfront development that is aimed at improving functional, socio-cultural, and environmental capacities of the city. This framework intended to make the Nile, and its tribunes the focus of daily life and maximize the interaction between the city and its water spaces. This concept is also expected to meet the escalating recreation demand, as witnessed by the rush on many new landscaped sites in different locations of Khartoum.

Evaluating a community participation exercise has been in the frontline of challenges faced by planners, policy-makers and academicians. In this article, a theory-driven approach to Community Participation evaluation framework/mechanism is presented and outlined. Counting on that our theories determine what we measure, the methodology underpinning this article depends on critical analysis and evaluation of how community participation is being evaluated in 1)traditional Community Participation literature and practices; 2) Third World oriented Community Participation literature and; 3) contemporary Community Participation literature and practices. The developed framework focuses more onthe procedural aspects of participation, stranding to its objectives. This article concluded by outlining a five-components framework through which Community Participation can be evaluated and measured. It is also concluded by arguing that;the approach presented can work nicely in both developed and developing world.