HOW TO SHAPE UP CONSERVATION-LED REGENERATION INITIATIVES REGARDING COMMUNITY NEEDS?
Journal Name:
- Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi
Key Words:
Keywords (Original Language):
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Abstract (2. Language):
Over the last three decades, historic housing areas with problems of social
exclusion and urban deprivation have become one of the major concerns
in urban regeneration, housing renovation and conservation projects.
While the urban regeneration and conservation policies in the 1980s and
1990s were primarily based on the idea of property-led regeneration
and mainly addressed economic and physical decline, the debate on
urban regeneration and conservation policies has moved to social and
community-related issues in the urban renewal process since the late-1990s
(Healey et al., 1992; Turok, 1992; Imrie and Thomas, 1993; Cameron and
Doling, 1994; Berry and McGreal, 1995; Jones and Watkins, 1996; Hill, 2000;
Pagonis and Thornley, 2000; Roberts and Sykes, 2000; Audit Commission,
2001; Nelson, 2001; Vicari, 2001; Birch, 2002; European Union, 2002; Adair
et al., 2003; Imrie and Raco, 2003; Madanipour et al., 1998). Despite the
shift in the emphasis of the policies towards social and community-related
issues, it is still questionable how far the recent regeneration efforts in
historic housing areas address the community needs and integrate the
aspirations, preferences and values of local residents living in or adjacent to
these project areas.
This paper addresses this question regarding economically depressed
and physically deprived historic neighborhoods in İstanbul, of which the
urbanscape has been changing more rapidly than ever before, along with
the rising interest of global, multi-national capital (Keyder and Öncü, 1993;
Dökmeci and Berköz, 1994; Öncü, 1999; Uzun, 2001; Keyder, 2005). While
new, luxurious, distinctive and exclusive urban sites have been developed
in the core and periphery of the city, and have remarkably exacerbated
urban segregation and fragmentation, and social exclusion, the historic
heritage sites, once again, have become the main concerns of key decisionmakers
due to their potentials of being used for city-marketing strategies
to attract global investors and capital to İstanbul (Dinçer, 2009a). Under the pressure of conservation-led regeneration strategies aiming to create
exclusive and distinctive places for tourists, visitors, potential residents and
service sector office workers, communities living in the deprived historic
neighborhoods where poverty, unemployment and crime rates are very
high, and where living conditions, education and health services are very
poor have been forced to move out of these sites without being addressed
their problems. Nevertheless, there are also cases shown as exceptional
from these recent strategies, such as Fener and Balat (F&B), a historic
housing quarter inhabited by poor immigrants and located in the historical
peninsula of İstanbul some parts of which were inscribed on UNESCO
World Heritage List in 1985.
This paper examines the recent European Union (EU)-funded conservationled
regeneration initiative to assess how far the scheme has met the needs,
aspirations and values of the local community. The paper initially defines
the concept of ‘community needs’, identifies the key issues of community
needs in deprived historic neighborhoods and then, briefly mentions urban
conservation and community-related policies in Turkey. Later, focusing
on F&B, it introduces the case study area, defines the community needs in
the mid-1990s, and then assesses the effectiveness or success of the recent
regeneration project in serving the community needs. Finally, debating on
the strengths and weaknesses of the scheme, the paper tries to highlight
the necessary requirements to shape up conservation-led regeneration
initiatives regarding community needs in deprived historic districts of
Turkey.
The case study of this research is based on the qualitative and quantitative
data that were gathered from reports, newspaper cuttings, academic
articles and researchers, census data of 1990, 1997 and 2000, in-depth
interviews and direct observations. In-depth and focused interviews were
conducted in 2006 with the key actors of the F&B regeneration initiative
and other major stakeholders involved in the scheme. The interviews
with the key actors of the project were carried out with the local authority
officers (the Fatih Municipality officer responsible for the regeneration
project and an officer from the Public Education Directorate of the Fatih
District), the officers from the technical team of the project (the local
coordinator, the director of the restoration projects, the project coordinator
of the social centre), the consultants of the project (the local consultant
and co-director of the feasibility study undertaken by Fatih Municipality,
the EU, UNESCO and the French Institute for Anatolian Studies in 1997-
1998). A voluntary group working in the area (the general secretary of
the Balat Beautification Association), teachers (the Principal of Tarık Us
Primary School and a teacher voluntarily working in the Yusuf Şücaaddin
Mosque study hall), ten local tradesmen and ten local residents were other
informants representing the major stakeholders involved in the project
(1). Additionally, the study particularly uses two researches as secondary
data, since both studies were the only latest resources about F&B before
the regeneration initiative was launched. The first one was conducted
by Foundation for the Support of Women’s Work (FSWW) in 2004 to
determine the problems, priorities, and needs of the case study area. The
research is based on the results of 300 questionnaires with local women and
those of 211 interviews with mukthars (headmen), the Balat Beautification
Association, the Fener Volunteers Association, school principals and local
people. The other research used as secondary data, was conducted by
Fatih Municipality, UNESCO, the EU and the French Anatolian Research
Institute in 1998 to pinpoint the problems, needs and solutions for the case study area. This study was mainly based on a research conducted by
Narlı (1997) on 236 households in the case study area in 1997, and a further
study carried out in order to establish the ownership pattern of the area,
including data from around 2,578 houses.
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Abstract (Original Language):
1990’ların sonlarından itibaren kentsel koruma ve canlandırma
konularındaki tartışmalar, toplumsal ve topluluk odaklı konulara kaymaya
başlamasına rağmen, kentsel koruma ve canlandırma projelerinin ne kadar
topluluk ihtiyaçlarına, değerlerine ve önceliklerine göre şekillendirildiği
araştırılması gereken önemli bir soru olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Bu
makale, 1980’lerin başından günümüze bir taraftan küresel ve uluslararası
sermayenin odağı haline gelen, diğer taraftan yoksulluk, toplumsal
dışlanma, kutuplaşma ve parçalanma sorunlarının hızla arttığı, tarihi
konut alanlarının soylulaştığı ve bu alanlarda yaşayan yoksul kesimlerin
sorunlarıyla birlikte kentin başka bölgelerine taşınmaya zorlandığı bir kent
olan İstanbul’daki tarihi konut alanlarına odaklanmaktadır; bu alanlardaki
koruma amaçlı projelerin ne kadar yerel toplulukların ihtiyaçlarına,
sorunlarına ve değerlerine cevap verecek biçimde şekillendirildiğini
incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu doğrultuda, Tarihi Yarımada’da Fener
ve Balat (F-B) bölgesinde yaşayan yoksul grupları, sorun ve ihtiyaçlarını,
ve bu alanın korunması ve canlandırılması için Avrupa Birliği (AB)
tarafından finansmanı sağlanan ve uluslararası bir ortaklık aracılığıyla
2003-2008 yılları arasında yürütülen proje incelenmektedir. F-B koruma
ve canlandırma projesinin güçlü ve zayıf yanlarının değerlendirilmesi
yapılarak, Türkiye’de tarihi konut alanlarında yürütülecek koruma ve
canlandırma projelerinin topluluk ihtiyaçlarına göre biçimlenmesi yönünde
bazı temel ilkelere dikkat çekilmektedir.
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