Planning for social sustainability can prevent or at least mitigate the likelihood of future social problems. This research attempts to examine the domains of sense of community, which is the main approach of social sustainability at the neighborhood scale, by evaluating these domains in terms of urban planning to understand residents' perception of their neighborhood. The study aims to answer the following two questions: Do the new neighborhoods that have been built in Cairo attain the social sustainability concepts? And what are the neighborhood characteristics that contribute in achieving these concepts? The study utilizes the case study method through selecting four identical neighborhoods at “New Maadi" district, which is one of the new zones that includes a reasonable part of the urban extension of Cairo.
The key findings of this paper reveal that there is a fair degree of residents' perception of sense of community domains at the study site level. Thus, the new neighborhoods which have recently been built in “New Maadi," have achieved a reasonable degree of social sustainability. Also, the essential characteristics that have positively affected the sense of community values have been the availability and efficiency of services and facilities, and age of the neighborhood. On the other hand, the essential characteristic that has had negative affect on the sense of community has been the residential density.