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Sustainable urban development is essential to enhance the quality of life of the citizens and to decrease the impact of cities upon resources outside the urban context. Redeveloping and planning green spaces and urban structure become the fundamentals of the sustainable urban planning of a city. An effective urban planning using recent technology is required to contribute to the physical and social development of the cities through promoting the land value and the local economy. This paper aims to develop a method to maintain ecological balance and organization of the urban green areas, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques that assist in effective planning of green areas. Land suitability analysis and ecological threshold methods based on GIS techniques are applied on one of the Egyptian new cities in a desert environment (i.e., El-Sadat City). Results revealed that the green ways could be developed to play a more significant role in bringing nature into the city. This paper suggests a method of green network planning that would help in enhancing the connectivity and reduce fragmentation though integrated greenway system. Finally, an ecological base for building an eco-city of El-Sadat City in the future is proposed. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.