Adopting an inside out perspective to city branding, this doctoral thesis examines the significance of residents and their relationship towards cities in terms of association, identity and ownership of the physical environment, in the context of city branding. This is important because the growing interest towards city branding not only challenged the traditional understanding of branding concepts but also forced academics and practitioners to seek ways to mould and shape existing concepts to the context of city branding. This qualitative study was undertaken within a constructivist grounded theory methodology and uses Leeds, UK and Istanbul, Turkey as deliberately contrasting case studies. In accordance with grounded theory, the literature was only used to inform rather than direct the research design. The sampling design involved initial and theoretical sampling and in total of 22 residents interviewed from both cities. The emergent place brand identity mosaic comprises of four main categories of social process (SP), place attachment (PA), sense of place (SoP) and built environment (BE), and the most significant feature of the place identity mosaic is that it is processual, dynamic, and time and context specific. In terms of contribution to knowledge, the present study bridges the gap in between the subject fields of branding (brand management) and urban studies by proposing an inside out approach to branding cities. The findings indicate that the place brand identity mosaic elements provide a platform to explain how residents make sense of where they live and to begin to understand the concept of the city brand identity. Moreover, in regards to practice, it brings a new perspective to the existing city managements by highlighting a focal point of “keeping the existing customers happy” through investigating and understanding the role and significance of residents, their attachment to where they live and how this insight can be cooperated into creating and developing a sustainable city brand.

The purpose of this dissertation is to identify various sources hitherto neglected by the field of historic preservation in Turkey, and to seek possible ways in which they can be incorporation into this field. As demonstrated by the case study chosen for this dissertation--the Balat District in Istanbul--the use of these sources fosters a richness of perception which today is lacking in historic preservation in Turkey. The dissertation begins with the hypothesis that historic preservation in Turkey was used to legitimize the constructed reality of the new Turkish Republic. Since the Republic represented everything the Ottoman Empire was not, it had to be purged of its Ottoman inheritance, including the Empire's institutions and its diverse, non-Muslim population. Istanbul's urban fabric, however, bore unmistakable marks of both. While the eradication of these marks was never a declared policy, the net effect of the Republic's actions was essentially to have that result. A heightened awareness of the neglected sources mentioned above may help obviate the ways in which history has been rewritten, and may also help us develop preservation policies which provide a richer, more complex and multi-ethnic reading of Balat's--and ultimately Istanbul's--past. In the case of Balat, in contrast to the relatively few sources used by preservation authorities (mainly old photographs and historic maps) stand a vast array of sources that typically go unnoticed. Among these are Byzantine records, Ottoman governmental records, Islamic court records, rabbinical records, church records, etc. In practice, a neighborhood preservation project would ideally use most of these sources. To make the current study manageable, however, I will focus specifically on Islamic court records. During my fieldwork in Istanbul, I scanned roughly 4,300 court records (covering the period from 1800 to 1839) to identify cases pertinent to the built environment. The 1198 cases that I identified provide a wealth of information related to building types, ownership patterns, commercial activity, demographics, mobility, etc.--information which helps us reconstruct the lifestyle of Balat's residents, and ultimately aids in the rendering of a multi-faceted narrative of the District's urban history. / text

This project aims to analyze the existing context and propose a strategy to revitalize Fener and Balat, which are two historic districts in Istanbul. During the past two centuries, economic changes, modernization movements and new planning strategies throughout the country have given the city a new shape. Individual buildings, streets, and entire sub-districts exist in various stages of disrepair. But today, Fener and Balat still preserve their distinctive character in their historic major structures, as well as historic commercial and residential districts. This unique character can be seen the districts' assets which are documented in this project along with the many liabilities. This revitalization project focuses on restoring and preserving the human-scaled buildings and pedestrian oriented streets, while creating cultural and tourist-oriented facilities to help economically revitalize the neighborhood. This project serves as a prototype for the revitalization of other historic neighborhoods in Istanbul and other historic Turkish cities. / Department of Architecture

In this thesis, socio-spatial processes regarding the distribution of transport infrastructures are investigated and the ways in which inequalities occur as a result of these processes are discussed. The transport system of Istanbul and particularly, the Istanbul Metro, the first modern subway of the city, has been the focus of this research. In order to understand inequalities in transport, social and spatial justice theories have been employed. Discussions have been extended in order to include different approaches to the issues of transport inequality from various disciplines such as geography, sociology and urban planning. In this sense, this study is multi-disciplinary. Debates on land rent theory, space and power, gendered mobilities, social exclusion and the right to the city are among the many concerns that formed the main arguments of this research. In this thesis, transport is taken as a fixed, an immobile commodity that produces mobile and dynamic commodities such as mobilities and flows. Through such interaction socio-spatial processes are produced which may or may not consist of inequalities. Issues related to inequalities are deconstructed in the literature review in order to help reconstruct a theory of uneven socio-spatial development as a result of the distribution of transport infrastructure investments. Discussions on theory are further examined through four empirical chapters each of which investigates different issues related to transport inequalities. A mixed-method approach has been used in order to fully explore the complexity of the subject and integrate different epistemological positions. Through four empirical chapters, socio-spatial inequalities are discussed with regard to daily mobility levels of different socio-economic groups in Istanbul and the Istanbul Metro as well as in-direct economic impacts of the Metro and the socio-political processes it generates. The findings support some of the previous research on social inequalities based on transport, especially on how gender, education and employment become important determinants of travel time, trip frequency, trip purposes and the use of different transport modes. Yet, the thesis presents unexpected results on the impacts of the Istanbul Metro. On the one hand, the Istanbul Metro can be regarded as a just infrastructure as it accommodates users from every socio-economic background. On the other hand, it can be inequitable as it is likely to facilitate the accumulation of capital in certain areas, and circulation of producers and consumers of this capital within the same spatial unit, the Metro itself. This thesis proposes that horizontal and vertical socio-spatial inequalities exist both individually and together in various contexts in Istanbul. These inequalities are based on the spatial distribution of transport infrastructure investments, power relationships between different socio-economic groups, the dominance of politically powerful groups and the historical development of the urban space. Together this thesis is in an attempt to establish a comprehensive narrative of the discourses of inequalities in transport planning and policy and makes suggestions on the ways to reduce such inequalities. Moreover, this thesis is an original contribution to the literature as it links hitherto unconnected strands of theory in transport geography and social and spatial justice literatures.

This document is submitted in partial fulfi lment for the degree: Master of Architecture [Professional] at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in the year 2013. / Made in Istanbul explores the heritage potential of the Galata area in Istanbul, Turkey. The research is focused on intangible heritage which is the craft networks, trade and community that brought the Galata district into being. Craft networks are embedded in the city and have been established over generations. Currently this trade is threatened due to greater municipal plans to make these areas touristic and convert buildings into cafes, bars and hotels. There is value in having craft and productions sites in the city and is an authentic reading for the city that dates back to Roman/Ottoman times. The aim of this project is to empower the existing community of craftsmen by using cultural interventions and tourism in a positive way to strengthen this trade. The design component of this research is a design residency and public space which becomes a platform for collaboration between creators (artists, designers, architects, writers, fi lm makers and etc) and master craftsmen. The site for this project has an historic byzantine city wall that dates back to the 1500’s. This wall is one of the few that still exist in the Galata area today. Careful consideration was taken to integrate this historic relic into the design with respect and sensitivity and to create a dialogue between old and new. This resulted in a contemporary light glass and steel structure to enhance and contrast with the historic stone wall.

Over the past decade, fuzzy systems have gained remarkable acceptance in many fields including control and automation, pattern recognition, medical diagnosis and forecasting. The fuzzy system application has also been accepted as a promising approach to dealing with uncertainty in real estate valuation analysis. This is mainly due to the necessity of coping with a large number of qualitative and quantitative variables that affect the value of a real property. The appraisers use a great deal of judgment to identify both the characteristics that contribute to property values and the relationships among these characteristics in order to derive estimates of market values. This thesis uses the two widely-used fuzzy rule-based systems / namely the Mamdani and Takagi- Sugeno-Kang (TSK) type fuzzy models in an attempt to examine the main determinants of office rents in Istanbul Central Business District (CBD). The input variables of the fuzzy rule-based systems (FRBS) comprise: i) physical attributes of office spaces and office buildings, ii) lease contract terms, and iii) tenants&rsquo / perception of the office rent determinants, tenants&rsquo / location of residence, tenants&rsquo / transportation modes, etc and as the output the system proposes the office property&rsquo / s rental price. Obtaining office rent determinants is a significant issue for both practitioners and academics. While,practitioners use them directly in demand and sensitivity analyses, academics are more interested in the relative significance of these variables and their effect on the variation in office rent to forecast market behavior. Our data set includes a detailed survey of 500 office spaces located in Istanbul CBD. We have carried out two Mamdani-type FRBS and two TSK-type FRBS for the office space and office building data sets. In these FRBS analyses, firstly the so-called representative office spaces are determined, then the average office space rents are estimated. Finally, the spatial variation in the average office rents across the CBD sub-districts, along with the Office space rent variations with respect to different clusters, like number of workers, number of floors and so on, have been analyzed. We believe that presenting the spatial variation in office rents will make a noteworthy contribution both to the real estate investors and appraisers interested in Istanbul office market.

From 330 to 1453 A.D., Constantinople became first the strategic position on the land route from the west to the east and then the important trading center of the eastern Empire. During this period the Italian cities had to cope with the "Question of the Straits" among themselves. For them, it was merely a commercial question. For the Greeks it was an important question since the city needed to be defended against the onslaught of the Moslems by means of the city's strong walls and by the active fleet in the Straits. The conquest of the Straits by the Turks, beginning around the middle of the fourteenth century lasted for about an hundred years. They accomplished this conquest in 1453. Gradually the Turks were able to extend their control over the entire Black Sea Area, and until that time the Black Sea was not entirely closed to trade. However, beginning in 1475 and lasting until 1774, the Black Sea was considered as a "virgin sea". Not until Russia had established herself upon the northern shores of the Black Sea did Turkey give up her exclusive control over all shipping within that body of water. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, all of the important countries of Europe had gained permission to pass their commerce through the Straits into the Black Sea. The problem of commercial freedom during peace time was pretty well settled, but Turkey through her control was able to prevent foreign warships from using the Straits and from entering the Black Sea. The purpose of this paper is to give an account of the events which took place during the years 1914-1923 in the establishment of a "New Regime of the Straits."

No description available.

The purpose of this thesis has been to provide an English translation of

Basiert auf Diss. Harvard Univ. (Cambridge, Mass.), 1990. / Includes bibliographical references and index.