Walking Between Walls, Transformation of Dead Streets' Design_Case Study Elsheikh Zayed City

Streets are more than just passageways for cars, they are valuable and vital public spaces that have a great impact on the livability and quality of life of urban districts. The spread of gated communities transformed the streets surrounding them drastically. A new type of street has started to appear, one that is surrounded by walls and has few potentials to attract and encourage people to use them safely. This study investigates the impact of the gated communities' phenomena on the livability of surrounding streets in an attempt to reach design guidelines to transform such streets to more livable ones. The research focus on the Egyptian context. To reach such guidelines the study used a three-stage methodology. It started with reviewing the literature about livable streets to conclude the indicators for measuring streets' livability. Stage two involved a case study (measuring the livability of two streets in Alsheikh Zayed, Egypt). Stage three involved the formulation of the design guidelines for creating livable streets around gated communities. The results showed that gated communities negatively affected the livability of the surrounding streets as the presence of walls/fences resulted in the absence of many of the elements necessary for streets' livability. The proposed design guidelines can be used for transforming such streets into more livable ones.