Amman is a City with a soul. For thousands of years, Amman - with its wealth of antiquities and monuments - has been telling the story of human civilization through its contact with different cultures and people. It’s a city that presents very clearly the changes of history. Amman today is a thriving metropolis accommodating 2.2 million inhabitants. An ‘oasis of tranquility and peace’ within a region of political turmoil, Amman is a City of the past, present, and future.

Despite its uniqueness regionally and internationally, Amman faced many challenges. The fluctuations in the local and regional markets, the boom in the real estate and construction industries, and the expansion that has tripled the City’s land base, all have threatened the character as well as the efficiency of the City. This was extravagated by out-of-date municipal planning tools that could not flexibly accommodate new forms of developments that could have serious impact on transportation, heritage, the City character, environment and stable neighborhoods. The soul of the City could not but be preserved.

In May 2006, King Abdullah II gave the royal directive to Mayor Omar Maani, to prepare a Master Plan for the City in order to:

“To achieve the optimum balance of healthy growth and quality living, flourishing expansion and organized districts, 21st century conveniences and traditional character, we must embark on a serious and comprehensive project of city planning for Amman”

The Amman Plan is a unique initiative to create Amman’s first legally binding, participation-based; plan to govern the City’s growth over the coming twenty years. The Amman Plan builds on, and is defined by, the character of the historic and contemporary City - that is, by what makes Amman Amman, including topography, natural and cultural heritage, views and landmarks, public spaces, stable neighborhoods, mixed-use streets, emerging variety of scales, uniformity of buildings, as well as the City's ongoing growth. The Plan seeks to extend the City's unique character into the future realizing that Amman is able to blend  modernity with its unique cityscape, but seeks to ensure that it complements the beauty, serenity and civility that the existing City is known for.

The Amman Plan is a unique planning initiative that is created at many scales simultaneously: The metropolitan one including the entire City administrative boundaries, the planning area one including a total of eight areas, and the community one including the 228 existing neighborhoods in Amman. These three scales are being looked at simultaneously so that implications of each on the others can be examined.