Sustainable urban growth and environmental safety: Mapping crime hotspots to support SDGs 11/16 in Najaf

¹ University of Kufa, Faculty of Arts, Department of Civil Society, Kufa, Iraq
² Colege of Arts, Department of Civil Society, Kufa, Iraq
³ College of Arts-University of Kufa, Kufa, Iraq
⁴ College of education for girls, University of Kufa, Kufa, Iraq

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract

The phenomenon of rapid urban growth is one of the phenomena that most Iraqi cities suffer from after the year (2003) , and the city of Najaf is one of those cities where rapid urban growth has led to the emergence of many problems, especially Social, most notably high crime rates, so this research came to answer this question (Did rapid and disorganized urban growth contribute to an increase in crime rates, and what is the nature of the correlation between urban growth variables and crime rates in Najaf city) the descriptive analytical approach was used to indicate and measure the relationship between the two variables, The research aims to measure and analyze the relationship between rapid urban growth and high crime rates, identify spatial hotspots of crime and link them to urban and social characteristics, the research has concluded several conclusions, the most important of which is, there is a strong direct relationship between rapid urban growth and high crime rates, as well as the increase in crime exceeds the increase in the population and the crime rate per person significantly and the research made several practical recommendations to reduce crime.