Urban regeneration provides an opportunity for the development of sustainable settlements. However, it is important to emphasize that unless there are observable criteria, the target of implementing statements of national vision and strategies considering both sustainability and urban regeneration is not fully accomplished. The main aim of the present study was to propose indicators for sustainable urban regeneration and potential policy instruments. Following a review of the literature, the 2 parallel processes-establishment of sustainability and urban regeneration-were combined in a conceptual framework that includes criteria regarding the 3 pillars of sustainability under certain themes. The importance of the study lies in the proposal of indicators for sustainable urban conservation and policy instruments that may be developed in further studies, with the intention of introducing legislation regarding these issues.

In recent years, regions have grown in importance as locations that define the competitiveness of nations and firms. This aim of this study was to evaluate the competitiveness of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 2 regions in Turkey according to some of the influential components and variables. Several theoretical and empirical studies have used a variety of characteristics. Principal component analysis was applied to determine the most significant elements affecting regional competitiveness in Turkey’s NUTS 2 regions: economic base and human capital. A strong economic base of private capital with an innovative structure linked to increased human capital and labor factors is necessary to be competitive. There are significant differences between regions; generally, the greatest potential for competitiveness is in the western regions of Turkey. To increase competitiveness, rational strategies aimed at creating innovative environments for regions to attract capital, both human and private, and to prioritize the local characteristics of regions should be implemented across the whole country.

Regardless of the level or scale, the fundamental requirement in the process of policy development or decision making in planning is the use of quality and efficient data infrastructure. This study describes the construction stages of such data infrastructure to form the basis of conservation-oriented strategic decision making in a participatory process considering the local and regional peculiarities of a particular rural area. By adopting a specific planning approach, it presents the differences of this data infrastructure from the data content in conventional upper scale planning approaches, and also identifies its contribution to ecological sensitivity and rural area classifications as its subsequent prerequisites. Construction stages of such infrastructure for upper and lower scales, which require working in GIS environment due to the scope and diversity of data, are explained in detail. This, at the same time, forms the initial phase of Conservation-Oriented Rural Area Planning known as KOKAP which is the adopted approach in this study. The system allows additional data diversity in case it is employed in different regions or locations. Superior aspects of the developed system are put forward by comparing the existing upper scale planning processes with the main principles of KOKAP and the related data infrastructure. Finally, the contributions of the study in identifying the ecological sensitivities at different planning levels, and rural area classifications at national and local levels are discussed.

Cities are the human settlements most affected by the adverse effects of climate change. Therefore, an important part of the adaptation policy implemented in the context of addressing climate change focuses on cities. In addition, creating an adaptation-oriented urban planning process has become one of the most important strategies. People living in urban areas may face many risks, such as illness and deaths caused by disasters that are the result of climate change. There are many factors that make the urban population vulnerable to these risks. Spatial structure characteristics are one of these factors. The identification of districts most susceptible to the effects of climate change as a result of spatial structure characteristics is very important for urban adaptation policies. Flooding and overflow problems caused by excessive precipitation and sea level rise due to climate change are the basis of this research to identify areas most at risk in the city of Izmir. The primary spatial factors that increase vulnerability to the threats of excessive precipitation and sea level rise were identified and the zones most at risk based on building characteristics and development were determined. Five levels of risk were assigned. The results and methodology can be used to contribute to adaptation-based urban policies, determine priority intervention zones in urbanized areas, and question the land use decisions in current plans.

Kemeraltı Bazaar is the historic center of Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, and has long been under significant development pressure; over time, it has undergone major transformations. Owing to shifts in perspective regarding the future of the historic center, which have had a great impact upon the entire city, the problems of Kemeraltı have been placed firmly on the urban agenda. Following agreement on the need to improve conditions in the district, local governments have initiated concomitant activities directed toward planning and implementation. With the intention of avoiding conflict with the artisans over projects that would require the demolishment of illegal constructions, the authorities made efforts to enable a properly collaborative planning process. In this paper, the collaborative problem-solving model of the projects is examined via in-depth interviews held with the relevant actors and adopting a holistic perspective.

The effects of studentification on neighborhoods are similar to those of the traditional gentrification processes: The concentration of students in a certain locality increases housing prices and transforms the socio-cultural base of the neighborhood in accordance with the preferences and needs of newcomers (university students). The neighborhood pattern that emerged following the studentification process in Bosna Hersek, a neighborhood located adjacent to Selçuk University –the second-largest university in Turkey by enrollment, was similar to many other gentrified areas: real estate values rose, the residential and commercial structure of the neighborhood has been reshaped according to the needs of the newcomers, the neighborhood has become dominated by a single social group (university students), and the incumbent population is being displaced socio-culturally (indirect displacement), if not physically (direct displacement). In this neighborhood, where students and non-students often live parallel lives that do not intersect with each other, the areas where these 2 groups do intersect have the potential to generate new lines of tension. As observed in many examples elsewhere in the world, topics such as noise, anti-social behaviors, and student lifestyle lay at the center of tensions between these 2 groups. Yet, students who were seen as unwelcome outsiders in the eyes of the incumbent residents in the early stages of studentification, have begun to be seen as preferred outsiders in the later stages, once the students gained numerical supremacy and their contributions to the economy of the neighborhood became perceptible by the incumbents. Bosna Hersek has transformed into a “student ghetto,” where the segregation between students and non-students and the numerical and cultural domination of the former group is easily observed. This new studentification-led form of segregation currently constitutes the main wave of gentrification in the Anatolian cities of Turkey.

This article is a discussion of the concept of quality of life in a regeneration area based on the personal evaluation of residents. Developed by social scientists to evaluate people’s well-being, satisfaction, and happiness, the concept of quality of life raises the issue of adapting the conditions of living spaces to meet people’s needs, expectations, and demands. The aim of this study was to establish an integrated and comprehensive framework for evaluating the quality of life in a regeneration case in Turkey through empirical research conducted at the neighborhood level. Data were collected from 359 households in the regenerated neighborhood of Akpınar, in the city of Ankara, using a questionnaire to inquire about the quality of life. The methodological framework of the study included a theory-based choice of indicators identified in a comprehensive literature review, including economic, ecological, physical, and social aspects of an urban environment, and an analysis of the relationship of the indicators to quality of life. Despite the diverse literature on urban environmental quality, there is no uniform, generally accepted conceptual framework to measure quality of life. Therefore, in this research, a mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis was adopted to assess the quality of life of the residents with respect to their housing and urban environment. The findings suggested that modern quality of life requires understanding the social, political, spatial conditions, and needs of residents. Based on the findings of the study, policy recommendations were developed to enhance quality of life at the neighborhood level from a space-sensitive perspective.

“Urban transformation” is now often presented as an inevitable stage of urban evolution, and urban land is entirely offered up to the capital market. Legal regulations are also created in order to provide authorization for these plans or to ease their implementation. Although it is clear that the urbanization of Turkey is a historical problem and that it is related to economic strategies at the local and the macro level, it is important that the consequences of such transformation be understood. At this point, it is essential to examine the socio-spatial outcomes and urban cost created by not only Article 73 of Municipal Law No. 5393, which allocated responsibility for decisions related to urbanization and urban development to the municipalities and the Housing Development Administration of Turkey, but also parcel-based implementation under “The Law of Transformation of Areas Under Disaster Risks,” No. 6306. This study examined the circumstances in the İzmir neighborhood of Bostanlı, where the implementation of parcel-based renewal has accelerated. The resulting population change, as well as a change in the physical density of the buildings and changes in the urban technological and social infrastructure that have occurred were evaluated from the urban planning perspective and on the basis of quality of life.

Household housing mobility, which reflects social, economic, and spatial aspects of housing, is one of the most important determinants of housing demand. Household mobility is related to factors such as life course/life cycle, housing profile, and the preferences/satisfaction of an individual or household. The aim of this study is to examine factors affecting household mobility in the metropolitan of Ankara. Data acquired from a 534-unit household survey in neighborhoods of Ankara’s metropolitan districts that were selected to represent the varied socioeconomic structure of the city were evaluated with descriptive statistics and factor analysis. According to the results of factor analysis, the economic structure of households, life course variables, housing profile, and location were the factors affecting household mobility in Ankara. Our results indicated that while rental housing stands out through the household mobility phases, the time span of living in a house decreases through mobility phases. Life course effects influence household mobility rather than life cycle effects and preferences/satisfaction factors as mobility phases proceed.

Tobler’s First Law of Geography states that nearby things are more related than distant things. In other words, there is a close relationship between nearby things compared to distant things. This also implies that built form is in a relational process in its topologic embodiment and the overall spatial form emerges a certain degree of wholeness. Mediating C. Alexander’s “levels of scale” property as a morphologic translation interface and using Shannon’s Entropy theory as a data-mining method, this study allows revealing the degree of uncertainty and disorderliness that a certain spatial complexity embodies. Shannon’s Entropy, a method of measuring the information, has been employed in this study in measuring the state of uncertainty and disorderliness conveyed through the multi-scalar context of built configuration across scales. Results have been hypothesized to correlate with the degree of wholeness, in other word completeness, of the case built area. Beyazit Square with its 50-hectare environs in the Peninsula of Istanbul has been selected as the case area due to the remarkable change that the square experienced through a harsh urbanization over the last sixty years. Building footprints belonging to two time periods have been used as raw data. Multi-scalar analyses conducted upon the data of 1946 and 2013 revealed that the wholeness of the square has deteriorated, from 0,77bit to 1,02bit entropy level within last sixty years. This finding is being verified by the remarks of the spatial assessments done for the square and visualized by the color-coding way of data-visualization.