Abstract
The purpose of this study is to shed light on the importance of sustainable urban planning development for communities and give a comprehensive review of key issues in terms of underpinning concepts, principles and challenges. The study will focus on a number of aspects related to the built environment, neighbourhoods and services, including the infrastructure, and public transport. Moreover, it aims to critically evaluate the most common and established frameworks of sustainable urban communities. Limitations of these frameworks are discussed, including regional variations. These are factored in a new approach for sustainable communities. The contribution of this research is to propose a scalable framework for an effective sustainable urban planning development for communities that address the gaps and the limitations of the existing models. This takes into account the core issues of urban communities including environmental, social, economic and planning perspectives.