The official newspaper Al-Sabah, conducted a press interview with the dean of the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning for Postgraduate Studies and Assistant Rector for Administrative Affairs, Prof. Dr. Kareem Hassan Alwan, on the establishing of new cities. The article issued by Haider Al-Jaber (calls for establishing of new provinces in the country) mentions that Iraq has maintained its administrative map since 1977 after constructing Duhok governorate in that year to be eighteen provinces, at the same time, the Iraqi government is planning to establish the nineteen province (Halabja).
The dean of the Institute in his statement, “the construction of new governorates aims to provide service with specific criteria that must be available”, Prof. Dr. Alwan also said to Al-Sabah press that the establishing of new provinces depends on the population because the aim of administrative units is to provide the service inside the city, or the province and that is done according to certain criteria that determines population and the administrative units that accommodates this population. Prof. Dr. Alwan, also added “sometimes, things are linked to the amount of expenditure of the size of the administrative unit and other elements such as heritage…etc. He continues “The design and planning of the cities are temporally and spatially changing and no fixed criteria are existed because essential target is to serve human to reach an innovative and smart cities and that’s what the world seeks.