Taimaz Larimian

1 Introduction Transportation systems in cities are very important as directly associated with the domains as how resources used around the world, how much energy is needed, how these energies are transported and how much pressure is put on the environment (ESCAP 2018; United Nations 2023). The demand for efficient, sustainable, and accessible transport solutions has prompted extensive discourse among specialists in the domain (United Nations 2021a, 2023).

ABSTRACT Major Kurdish cities, particularly Erbil, are experiencing rapid growth in population and territory. However, the housing development practices in Iraq since the 2003 war have led to a decline in local environmental quality, despite a burgeoning demand for urban housing. This study examines how environmental considerations are integrated into mass housing planning in post-war Erbil, focusing on the differences between government-led and private-sector developments.

The concept of urban observatories (UOs) was adopted by UN-Habitat in the early 2000s, aiming to promote urban information, support decision-making and facilitate dialogue between stakeholders. UOs are known as “research organisations that work across policymaking and academia” (Washbourne et al., Citation2021, p. 27). According to UN-Habitat (Citation2020, p.