The role of the city prosperity index in sustainable development case study: Infrastructure in the Holy City of Makkah

The world is witnessing a large and continuous process of rural-urban population ‎transformation. This poses a major challenge to the urban planning and sustainable ‎development processes. Accordingly, these processes must keep pace with the future ‎and are based on scientific foundations to achieve the desired and achieve prosperity. Data and indicators that include all dimensions of sustainable development are ‎considered one of the important tools for achieving effective and efficient development ‎policies. The Habitat City Prosperity An initiative is a tool for measuring sustainable ‎urban development that enables city management authorities and various stakeholders ‎to identify different opportunities and areas for development to make cities more ‎prosperous. The research sought to describe and analyze the city prosperity initiative and study the ‎relationship between it and the goals of sustainable development in general, and a ‎detailed study of one of its main axes (infrastructure development), then study its ‎results in the city of Makkah and study how the indicators of infrastructure development ‎were reflected in development policies. The research took a methodology to achieve the goals through the descriptive, ‎analytical approach and case study to devise how to use the indicators of city prosperity ‎to set development policies. The research concluded the importance of the Cities Prosperity initiative as a tool for ‎monitoring and analyzing the current situation and as a monitoring and evaluation tool ‎to achieve the goals as well as a tool for how to achieve the goals. The research also ‎showed how to use the indicators of prosperity and quadrennial analysis thereof in ‎setting development policies and achieving sustainable urban development. The ‎research recommends the necessity of publishing and teaching the indicators of ‎prosperity to architects. Also, planners at the university level as well as in the ‎professional field, as well as training workers in the relevant authorities, as well as ‎setting up a system of qualitative indicators for comprehensive information on ‎development issues.‎