A Study on Community Centers Role in Russian Planning Model: Case Study in Khairkhana Residential District, Kabul City, Afghanistan

Mohammad Ramin Amiryar, and Junichiro Asano

Department of Urban Planning, Japan

Abstract: This paper endeavors to epitomize the indispensable role of Community Centers (hereafter referred to as “CCs”) in the sustainability and development of a community. The main aim of this paper is to reinforce the community by proposing the multi-purpose centers, and to rehabilitate the disappeared CCs in the planned residential districts of Khairkhana by rooting the key issues based on Russian planning system. Most CCs converted to stand-alone buildings, useless lands and even disappeared from the area due to serious impacts of land use changes. Reinforcing the current CCs and rehabilitating the old and disappeared CCs help us in strengthening the correlation between community residents, confronting the critical issues and recovering the real form of Khairkhana Planned Residential District. Therefore, we used the following criteria to analyze the issues within the study area:
1) Population: There are big differences between the number of residents and the number of CCs. we analyze the number of CCs according to the number of residents in different periods.
2) Land Use Change: CCs are in a severe condition. We analyzed each pattern (Stand-alone Buildings, Bared- lands and Different Functional) by number in the study area.
3) Physical condition: We analyzed the relationship between the Russian Structure Layout and CCs in Khairkhana micro-districts to find the physical status of current Layout.
4) Sustainability: we reviewed the Islamic and Western CCs to clarify their importance in sustainability and development of a community. Finally, we talked about activities’ situation and proposed an alternative method to reinforce the community and to rehabilitate the disappeared CCs.

Key words: population growth, land use change, community center, reinforcement, rehabilitation