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In the last few decades, urban decay has increased within the city urban fabric; due to the deterioration of the inner city and increase in population. High income citizens abandoned their houses demanding a better quality of life outside the city fabric, leading the old city to be occupied by poorer households or left vacant. Urban decay is linked to suburban sprawl as the economic life is pulled out of the city, instead of a previously developed urban site within the old city fabric. Infill development is the new development of vacant, abandoned, passed over, or underutilized land within built-up areas of existing communities, where infrastructure is already in place. It is a solution to filling gaps in existing communities and playing a critical role in achieving community revitalization, land conservation and alternatives to sprawl development. Taking advantage of existing infrastructure, increasing walkability by contributing safe and attractive pedestrian environment, creating new opportunities for mixed use that recapture the "sense of place" that is largely missing in development projects. Infill development is a solution to enhancing the character, viability and function of the old city. The aim of this research is to articulate the potential and limits of infill development. It focuses on factors that influence decisions to introduce infill development as an approach to smart growth and a solution to urban decay. This is achieved by analyzing international and local examples of infill development to identify the different land use of vacant land in different urban contexts. An analytical comparison is carried on the examples, to achieve broad recommendations for infill development in different urban contexts.

Green Corridors are an essential component of the cities' ecological networks; they are a strong response to environmental problems. They have a dual purpose. In addition to their ecological role in creating a pure vision, and helping people to live in better communities, they provide access routes, and improve the quality of life, particularly social life. Therefore, they should be viewed as part of the overall network of habitats throughout the city.Green Corridors' designs produce a subsidiary network of greenways to actualize and complete the green infrastructure framework. Alexandria city, Egypt, has many of those corridors, which give a good opportunity to create local Green Networks of high quality. The development of Mahmoudeya Canal, which is the main Green Corridor in Alexandria, may be the main axis to increase the number of open spaces, and to create an attractive urban environment.This paper aims to apply such corridors to unify and actively connect all parts within the city's fabric and beyond. This will create new channels for population-distribution, provide more economic opportunities and increase the potential value of land potential. It will also present a conceptual design for a Green Network inside the urban form of Alexandria city. Main nodes at the existing canal will be created as the central pivots to run the Green Network into the different parts of the city, and form many areas encircled by greenways. Thus, it will ease the development procedures of these areas to have adaptive green areas and enhance their environmental context. The paper concludes that Green Corridors have a pivotal role in increasing environmental quality, so planners and decisions makers should incorporate Green Networks in the urban form of the new communities, and plan to develop the existing corridors through good management and maintenance.

Historical sites are the economic, cultural and social drivers for a dynamic and sustainable environment. They constitute an integral part of nations' history, identity and regional diversity. Small and medium-sized historical sites with their outstanding built cultural heritage strongly shape the urban landscapes and form the backbone for a balanced and polycentric settlement structure. Historical sites face many challenges, like accelerating globalization, structural, social and demographic changes as well as environmental problems and urban growth. As urban growth is a double faced process it is the concentration of population in urban areas due to supplied services that are missing in rural areas, at the same time it is a decline of socioeconomic areas agglomerations. This increase in population happens due to the concentration of economic activity, which is an important determinant, and the result of urbanization. This results in introducing unbalanced trends which destroys human cohesion and builds social exclusion in cities and regions. Through urbanization, people ignore their identities and traditions seeking adequate services and a better lifestyle leading to the disappearance of existing urban fabric that creates an undefined urban pattern. The right balance between restoring and preserving unique cultural heritage has to be set to enable futureproof urban development. Urban growth affects the efficiency of production and economic growth, and the way agents interact and live in cities. Understanding its implications and causes has captured the interest of economists, architects and urban planners in the past and deserves to continue doing so in the future. The research aims to extract a set of urban guidelines to cope with the development process with respect to the identity and character of the place and to