Regional Planning Directions for the Area Southeastern of Nablus and the Proposal of Establishing a Common Services Center

This thesis handled the study and evaluation of the regional planning directions of the area Southeastern of Nablus and the proposal of establishing a common service center. The Aqraba town has been considered as the common service center in the area. For this, the physical, geographic, social, and economic features of the area are studied. The major aim of this thesis is to study and analyze the existing regional relationships between the settlements in the area and the selected common service center. To achieve this aim, some theories and models concerning spatial interaction and interrelationships among the settlement were tested using the statistics and data collected by the author. The study resulted in the availability of high degree of interaction between Aqrab town and other settlements in the area in terms of distance. However, a high degree of interaction with Nablus has been noticed. This id due to the population number and services provided by Nablus as well as the obvious dominance of Nablus city over these settlements on one side, and the inability of Aqraba to provide such services, particularly education, health and administrative, on the other side. The study indicated the necessity of improving the sector of public services and facilities in the study area as a whole and in the selected common service center (Aqraba town) in particular. Finally, the study has emphasized the improvement of the infrastructure services and the urgent need of the preparation of master plans for all the settlements in the area in order to arrange the land uses and control the physical growth as well as conserving the agricultural lands.