**5. Discussion**

This study provided a review of city character change focusing on land use change, urban morphology and a public perception of Amman's covered stream. The study found the changes in land use, urban morphology and city character were induced due to policy implementation, in addition to the population escalation followed by contiguous urban growth in the downtown area.

Before covering the stream, the land uses were confined to agricultural, residential and recreational uses, with a few commercial uses and services spread along the stream banks. After the implementation of the 1960s policy, land uses had evolved on both sides of the corridor (the covered stream), increasing the size of commercial, services and mixed land use type of buildings.

The presence of the stream played a vital role in distinguishing a socioeconomic lifestyle along the stream banks where the city had a small, simple and multicultural society. Residents were working in agriculture, handicrafts, trading and fishing. Residents' houses were scattered alongside the stream, where bridges over the stream helped them to access their daily destinations. The stream of Amman

was the dominant element of the urban fabric before the 1960s, showing a primarily green corridor with urban spaces surrounding the stream. The stream enhanced the recreational and social life of the residents in addition to some historical and religious buildings.

The urban morphology of the study area converted from an organic and a spontaneous scatter into a loose-grid pattern dominated along the main street corridors. The dominant element in Old Amman has been changed from a green corridor into a traffic corridor that attracted emerging land uses. The land use change also affected the urban morphology, making the urban blocks more intensive, while allowing for small crafts shops and low budget uses to coexist. The urban spaces between urban blocks decreased slowly until the stream disappeared completely. No signs of a green corridor remained to remind people of the old city life.

The culvert created a more urbanized downtown with mixed industrial land uses concentrated on both sides of the covered corridor. Some important land uses disappeared, such as agricultural and recreational uses. Unlike the 1955 master plan which proposed green fingers for the green infrastructure of the city, the 1960s policy robbed the city its green corridors. This is an important indicator of the need to make changes for the CBD in order to revise and reverse this policy.

The proposal of the 1960s policy of creating central business in the downtown was not met in the actual current land use. The impact of change in the land use inspired more traffic congestion. Consequently, the initial problems of traffic within the area were not solved. Floods remained as a problem well into the present time. While the policy of the 1960s intended to solve traffic congestions and winter floods for a more prosperous downtown, the results have developed otherwise.

The land use change affected the social and perceptual aspects of the city character. The study found a dramatic change of community perception between the coverage stages. The Elderly who lived in the city before the coverage of the stream and witnessed all stages of change presented the perception of the city before the coverage of the stream. Their perception of the city reflected a small city flourished with history, diversity and civilization. The city was rich in natural resources, such as the stream and abundant springs. In addition, the city was rich in biodiversity, including trees, wildlife, fish and livestock. The downtown or the city center was the political, economic, social and cultural center, which was frequented by people from all regions.

The perception of the city after covering the stream was presented by the point of view of those who answered the on-street, one-to-one questionnaire and the online questionnaire. Although the participants considered the downtown as a tourist and cultural destination, most of them had no favorite destinations in the downtown. The participants of the survey focused more on the negative effects in the downtown area, such as the absence of green areas, the increased visual pollution and runoff rates.

The online questionnaire revealed the perception of the present city character as "the city of traffic congestion" (97.3%). This is a relatively large percentage, and is an alarming negative indicator of the overall perception of the city character. The perception of "Amman is the city for all nationalities" reached 87%, which is an added value. Another negative perception with high percentage was "Amman is the city of concrete and stone blocks", which was 85%. However, 82% of the participants considered that Amman was NOT "the city of waters", which is a negative, alarming indicator, as a result of the policy implementation and the lack of knowledge concerning the history of the city. These findings regarding the general perception of the city character raised concerns about the future of city character. The present conditions, they believed, showed character loss or absence. Some of the participants indicated that the future city character will be lost or will develop an unknown character.

Community's perception of the city character varies depending on the age group. The perception of the generations who lived through the changes differs from the generations who lived after those changes. The generations who had experienced the change since its earliest stages conceived the place in relation to their personal experience, the physical elements (natural and environmental ones), the social and economic aspects. Generations who did not live through the change have viewed the character based on an economic, urban and architectural perspective not in relation to the natural

environment and the context of the city kernel and surrounding region. They acknowledged its historical and multicultural character, and however thought that its character is now lost and replaced by a harsh traffic and building-dependent city.

All the results related to the land use change and to the perception change of city character indicated that we need to reconsider the adopted policies. In addition, we need to know how to implement them, taking into consideration all environmental, physical, social and economic factors to restore and preserve the city character. Additionally, the future development of the city should be commensurate with the needs of the current and future generations in a sustainable manner. This is especially important since many people had concerns for losing the chance to save the significant character of Amman. Interfering with ecological or environmental urban issues may create bigger problems that are hard to control, given the circumstances.

In the case studies of Seoul and Los Angeles, the solutions for the mistaken policies treated the conditions as an opportunity to create positive changes. Similarly, the conditions in Amman can benefit from such opportunities for creating positive changes.

Although the study focused on physical and perceptual factors as affected by a certain engineered policy to mitigate flood and traffic problems, its results can go beyond these boundaries to understand the way a policy is formulated and implemented. It can also help in understanding that municipal power, environmental assets, sociocultural needs and city character are interrelated components of change. There are many lessons that can be learned from this exploration of policy implementation and change. The results show many hidden values that can be deduced from this case study:

Land use development towards central business and vital commerce cannot be motivated by policies that eradicate an environmental asset that once contributed to the urban character. Sometimes, as in this case, an engineered problem solving is not always the solution for a more prosperous city center. This was also true in the case of the LA River.

Urban morphology can eradicate urban spaces once policies neglect the proper setback and allocation of open spaces and lose respect for environmental assets. With the absence of strict policies, densification can get out of hand.

Change happens incrementally over so many years, that the perception of change can sometimes pass unnoticeable. The new generations sometimes fail to see the actual original sense of a place and what it once presented due to urban policies that hassle to create physical changes without taking into account the public needs or the historical and heritage value of a place.

Young and old generations are accepting of the importance of the natural environment in this context for the lack of open spaces and recreational environments. They like to see changes that bring back more of nature and less of traffic congestion. They are enthusiastic about environmental transformations. This is true despite the fact that the new generation was not aware of the stream corridor and did not know that it had a substantial influence on the historical city character as the "City of Waters".

Flood management and traffic control policies ought to consider the public perception of the place and ecological factors as other determinants of change. Sometimes with some creativity, problem-solving can create a new welcoming nature that has the potential to transform—in a parallel way—the economy and nature such as the examples of San Antonio Texas and Cheonggyecheon in Seoul. In these two examples, the problem-solving brought a new character to the city that can grow, change, and elevate its economic and infrastructure planning.

The power to create improved city centers is mostly in the hands of municipal management and action plans. Therefore, the awareness of what physical changes can do to the city character should be enhanced for decision-makers at the municipality level.

The proposal of bringing back the stream into an urban greenway was accepted by the local community positively. The study revealed the desire of the local community to restore the stream of Amman in an urban greenway. They justified the several factors, including the need to create new development prospects in the downtown, the need to restore the unique historical character of the city, the need for recreational areas and green spaces suitable for all groups of community, the need for suitable places for cultural activities and the need to conserve environmental resources. They defended the need to mitigate the environmental impacts of the urbanization process such as reducing the runoff, helping in storm water management, reducing the impact of urban heat island and reducing the air pollution. Bringing back the stream into an urban greenway is an opportunity which will provide a linear green heart that will restore the character of the stream. It will also provide an attractive and safe environment for pedestrian movement. It has the potential for changing the lifestyle in the city from car-dependent to walkable streets and green networks. This, in turn, will encourage investments in the downtown, which will subsequently provide new land uses and new job opportunities more fitting with the capital city CBD of Amman.
