This study concentrates on the fragmentation process of the city centers. The study suggests that it is not necessarily the planning decisions or the lack of a rigorous planning framework that brings about the fragmentation process. Local and global economic and social circumstances may also give way to fragmentation of the city center. These processes take place through the countenance of developers, city authorities and central government. In this context, the study focuses on the fragmentation process of the city center functions with specific attention to the retail decentralization. The issue is considered within the dilemma between the investor and urban development. The main concern of the study is to put forward the fragmentation process of the city center of Ankara, as a consequence of the changing economic structure and the decision making processes under certain economic conditions, concentrated on decentralization of organized retail. Within this framework three different methods are used to display the fragmentation process. The first one consider the changes in the urban space / the second one focus on the processes of location and relocation of public buildings / and the third one consider the impacts of the organized retailing on the fragmentation of the center through Armada Shopping Center. The first two methods, which are historical and geographical, demonstrate how this process was formed and the final empirical method quantitatively illustrates the fragmentation process. Doing this, the fragmentation process and the changes in the city center analyzed through the entrepreneurs and the major representatives of the central government and local administrations under the given economic and social structure.

The success of the local development experiences after the 1980s is associated with the non-economic components as well as the economic ones in the contemporary development literature. Most apparently, the literature seems to be intensified on the local institutions and on the local social interaction which creates reciprocal cooperative trust relations. These socially constructed local institutions refer to the local rules, routines and patterns having been directly influencing the relation among the local actors of development. They are also seen to be the organizational actors of development being responsible for the social inheritance of traditional and even tacit local knowledge and facilitating the adaptation of other local actors to the changing supra local networks. In many cases, however, the age groups dominating these successful development experiences have come to the edge of or already exceeded the age limits of active workforce cohorts currently. The coming decade, therefore, indicates a succession period from these generations leading to the emergence of successful development experiences to their successors. This period is identified in this study as the generational transition. This concept represents a newly emerging field of contradiction and this study analyses and conceptualizes the influences of generational transition on the local pathways of development both in terms of the tensions between diverse generations, and in context of tensions between the institutions and successor generations and among the institutions being socially constructed by diverse generations. These tensions are analyzed in this study through the Kayseri experience which has created a successful local development practice after the 1980s by focusing the generational transformation of both the local development path and the socio-spatial patterns of the town. This analysis indicates three vitally important outcomes of generational transition. Firstly, the local socio-spatial institutions have a crucial importance in the social inheritance of the traditional local knowledge and they have been transformed by the influences of generational transition. Secondly, it is found that the economic organizations have been transformed generationally in tune with the generational transition. And finally it is found that the generational transition has directly been influencing the local development path by destroying or changing some institutions and by creating some new ones.

It is an indisputable fact that cities have experienced a process of economic and spatial restructuring accompanied by the globalization of economy throughout the world since the 1980s. In line with this process, industrial sector has also witnessed economic and social restructuring process. Research in regional planning marks this process as a consequence of emerging industrial dynamics such as new technologies, new markets, and lower labor costs under new spatial divisions of labor. Such industrial dynamics brought spatial restructuring as well. Therefore, industrial firms are willing to relocate production activities to the new areas where they maintain the spatial margins of profitability. In this respect, today, one of the main discussion arenas of industrial geography is to explain the reasons of the industrial relocation. Within this context, this thesis focuses on the main push and pull factors that underlie the relocation process of industrial activities towards outside of Istanbul as well as beyond the provincial boundaries. In order to show this, a case study was conducted in Gebze Organized Industrial Zone (GOIZ) because 1/100.000 scale Environmental Management Plan of Istanbul has determined GOIZ as the potential area where the firms can relocate. The case study covered 37 firms which constitute the total number of firms relocated from Istanbul. Results of the thesis show that traditional location factors such as transport, site and premises are the most important factors that motivate firms to relocate from Istanbul to the GOIZ. However, contemporary factors are not much explanatory in case of the GOIZ.

This thesis investigates in deindustrialization process, its decline impacts and restructuring process in socio-spatial context. Both deindustrialization and restructuring processes are evaluated regarding a muti-layer conceptualization of the problem. Zonguldak Case is chosen to investigate in the deindustrialization process taken place in the mono-centric local economy dependent on coal mining, the decline impacts of this process on the whole urban set-up including labour households, the city, other economic activities and industrial, regional and urban restructuring process in response to these impacts. The study discusses diverse restructuring attempts concerning local dynamics and local characteristics of Zonguldak.

Turkey is one of the leading tourism countries of the world. Tourism contributes to not only national economy but also regional development. Turkey has adhered to several international conventions regarding economic, socio-cultural and environmental sustainability. Nonetheless, since the onset of the 1980s, Tourism Encouragement Law&rsquo / s main policies, along with the globalization and privatization, have developed mass tourism in Turkey, and led to continuous damage on the natural environment. Over the last thirty years, forest lands along the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts have been eradicated and over-exploited to a greater degree through the development of large-scale, inward-oriented and exclusive tourism investments, and second-home developments. This thesis investigates the extent to which forest lands in Turkey are allocated regarding &lsquo / sustainability&rsquo / measures. It first makes a literature review on the notions of &lsquo / sustainability&rsquo / , &lsquo / sustainable development&rsquo / , &lsquo / sustainable forest management&rsquo / and &lsquo / sustainable tourism planning&rsquo / , and examines institutional, stakeholder, policy and legal dimensions of tourism planning on forest lands in Canada and Australia, widely accepted with their advanced practices in the world to draw a theoretical framework and identify main components of &lsquo / sustainability&rsquo / . Second, it analyzes how far institutional, stakeholder, policy and legal structures in Turkey have accommodated the sustainability approach, while allocating forest lands to tourism. Then, it examines the recent development story of Belek Tourism Center (BTC) in Antalya by assessing &lsquo / economic&rsquo / , &lsquo / socio-cultural&rsquo / and &lsquo / environmental&rsquo / sustainability indicators. In the final part, the thesis underlines the major shortcomings and seeks to identify main policies for &lsquo / sustainable&rsquo / allocation and use of forests for tourism in Turkey.

The purpose of this study is to assess Turkish squatters, namely &lsquo / gecekondu&rsquo / over the image in cinema in terms of a visual urban archive. In order to analyze this representation in cinema as an urban image, both the cinematic production and urban theoretical approaches about migration and gecekonduzation process are discussed in order to find out the parallelism between the stories of gecekondu in these two fields, and to crosscheck the cinematic image of gecekondu. Therefore, the study is held in accordance with the epochs due to the break points of the history of the phenomenon. The movies are analyzed through a critical discourse analysis after the depiction of each epoch. Finally, the picture of the phenomenon is compared with the actuality of the epochs, academic framework and the cinematic image with the purpose of revealing the cinematic memory about it.

The main objective of this study is to investigate reproduction strategies of upper-middle class group of people in Ankara and their differentiation propensities in the fragmentation process of urban space. Dispositions and everyday life practices of upper-middle group on Bourdieu&rsquo / s approach in the urban space of Ankara are analyzed on the basis of intensive interviews with upper-middle class women. In this sense, special emphasis is placed on this group&rsquo / s close family relations, investment strategies in education, housing and living space strategies.

This thesis analyzes the process of proactive urban design in a theoretical framework. It asks searching questions about how built environments are conceived of, designed, delivered, protected, enhanced and managed, and it explores these by examining the proactive planning practices in Britain. It defines the proactive approach firstly as / how both the spatial policy and detailed guidance express and prescribe the desired physical form, and secondly / how this is pursued through active negotiation. While encompasses land use planning, spatial planning goes beyond physical planning with a clearly defined local vision which emphasises social, economic and environmental values. This inclusive approach defines urban design as a spatial policy describing both the form and the life of the city. It deals with how urban design infuses planning policies at all levels. The case study looks into policy mechanisms associated with the delivery of good urban design. It represents the proactive planning practice through involvement, partnership working and negotiation processes based on a sustainable community strategy. It focuses on the policies influencing design quality and how these shape the decisionmaking processes of public and private sector stakeholders resulting in better quality of built environment and a more vibrant public realm. This study examines the social structure that developed the proactive approach for best practice to become common practice. It explains the lessons to learn from the definition of spatial planning process with its context and implementation tools, even if these might not be adapted to Turkey without the same intellectual and philosophical backgrounds.

The main concern of this thesis is to evaluate the land-cut as an alternative urban design tool instead of landfill in the creation of shore in waterfront areas in terms of improving space quality, increasing the shoreline length for the use and benefit of public, decreasing the risks of natural disasters while increasing the marine ecosystem and habitat, and promoting the development of the land economy. The development of the idea dates back to an urban design studio study carried out in 2005 in Eceabat, &Ccedil / anakkale by Middle East Technical University Urban Design Master Program. During the study, it was observed that the interaction of small town of Eceabat with water was partially blocked by a seaside road and a ferry port created by landfill. Therefore, the ways of integrating the town life with water was searched and in the design schemes proposed after the analyses, the possibility to create a new shore by land-cut method in Eceabat was evaluated. Within this framework, the possibility of using land-cut method is evaluated in a more detailed case study of KuSdili Meadow and KuSdili Stream (Kurbagali v Dere) located in Kadik&ouml / y, Istanbul where there is a potential to create urban space with an approach which has not been used so far in Turkey. Prior to the analysis, the life near waterside has been studied in order to clarify how people from different geographies developed settlements near waterside and how those settlements existed with water. The reasons and the problematic of landfill has been evaluated with specific examples in order to put forward from what aspects the use of an alternative method be considered is necessary. Therefore, the legal and administrative aspects which resulted in the creation of landfills as problematic spaces on the waterside have also been discussed. At the end of the study, the potentiality of the site has been studied to find out from various urban design aspects with a specific reference to the applicability of land-cut method. Therefore, the analysis of the site has been carried out. And the thesis has shown that land-cut may possibly be an alternative to landfill in the development of waterside urban spaces from various spatial, social, and economic aspects.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between the ownership issues and the conservation of historical housing areas, which is still an ongoing problem in Turkey. The study was carried out with respect to the local and international conservation approaches, as well as three urban conservation experiments from Turkey and Italy. Istanbul - Zeyrek World Heritage Area was taken as a case study to understand further on the issue. Approaches of international authorities on urban conservation such as UNESCO and European Council, and existing conservation legislation in Turkey were studied in relation with the concept of ownership and integration of property owners into the conservation process. Besides, recent changes in Turkish conservation legislation were studied and criticized from the same perspective. Three urban conservation experiences, &ldquo / Renovation of the Historic Center of the City of Bologna&rdquo / from Italy, &ldquo / Rehabilitation of Fener and Balat Districts Programme&rdquo / and &ldquo / TarlabaSi Urban Renewal Project&rdquo / from Istanbul Turkey were also studied within the frame of this study. These practices supplied information about how property owners&rsquo / integration into the process effects conservation of urban environments, from three different perspectives. Zeyrek World Heritage Area is a conservation area with monumental buildings from Byzantine Period and timber houses from Ottoman Period. Although many conservation plans concerning the area has been prepared, historical building stock of the area is in danger. Conservation problems and opportunities of the area were investigated by analysis and social and economic research in the area. At the end of the study, with reference to the experiences discussed, it was emphasized that Zeyrek World Heritage Area could be conserved, with an approach considering property owners within existing social and economic conditions of Zeyrek and current conservation legislation.