Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs (JCUA - Alanya Hamdullah Emin Paşa Üniversitesi)
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Roles of Drop-in Centers in Street Children Interventions: Design Guidelines and Humanitarian Emergency Architecture Adaptations
For decades, numerous countries have been witnessing the Street Children phenomenon where millions of children worldwide are subjected to risks. Despite the crucial role of intermediate non-residential interventions - using drop-in centers- in protecting and rehabilitating street children, there is a paucity of research addressing the quality of design of these centers and how architecture might influence their operational process. Those observations invite investigating drop-in centers used in practice from a design perspective and question adapting architectural applications for humanitarian emergencies, focusing on “Child-Friendly Spaces”. The study aims to provide solutions for better quality design, facilitating operational challenges. The methodology undertakes the investigation through primary and secondary axes. This involves conducting literature and international precedents review and secondarily, an Egyptian contextual first-hand documentation and qualitative analysis of selected centers.
Towards the Egyptian Charter for Conservation of Cultural Heritages
The notion of “Cultural heritage” is quite modern compared to other humanistic fields developed in the last century. Conservation as a science has emerged and took shape during international conventions and treaties in many places in Europe and developed various frameworks to recognize the heritage and its value but based on “Eurocentric bias” criteria. The fact of sharing universal values and common practices during the age of globalization had a significant impact on conservation actions in contexts utterly different from western societies and don’t share the same historical or cultural dimensions. Therefore, this study traces the history of the evolution of conservation in the west from two perspectives; the historical one and the developing methodologies, and the philosophies behind the main theories in conservation. Cultural heritage is a reflection of the identity of the society and its past; thus, this study outlines the development of conservation practices in Egypt within the international approaches in a chronological order to investigate the social response and the impact of the political and cultural influence of the cultural consciousness of the society and the conservation actions in the Egyptian context. Furthermore, to investigate the contribution of international charters in developing national policies in Egypt
Liveability Dimensions in New Town Developments: An Overview of Senri New Town and Purbachal New Town
Since the 1960s, new town developments within large metropolises have been widely adopted to decongest the city centres, especially in Asian cities. This paper provides a brief account of the liveability dimensions of two new townships developed in large metropolitan areas: Senri New Town in Osaka and Purbachal New Town in Dhaka. The study primarily draws on master plans of the two developments to identify how the components of the plans reflect the physical, social, functional and safety dimensions of a proposed liveability framework. The methodology combines a review of masters plans with scholarly and grey literature on the two new town developments. The findings show while the social and functional dimensions are integrated with Senri New Town; Purbachal New Town, though more recent, appears to have missed opportunities for diversifying density, social mix and mass transit. The paper concludes that the comparative case, Senri-New Town provides insights on how public-private people participation can leverage citizen-centred design for more liveable residential living environments in developing cities
Property and Thomas Piketty: Casting the Lens of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century on Inequality in the Urban Built Environment
Currently, there exists a disturbing urban problem exemplified by the excessive luxury apartments and glamorous office towers being built in cities around the world in the face of the increasing unaffordability of housing and low-cost work, trade or craft space. Seeking to address this complex problem, this paper proposes a theoretical framework that uniquely addresses both the capitalist economic structure that drives the development process and the Marxist-based urban theory by which the socio-economic outcomes are currently evaluated. This framework takes as its meta-theory, the approach of Thomas Piketty in his recent treatise, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” since he deftly employs the Marxist dialectic of labor/capital while investigating the persistent inequality in the history of capitalism by interrogating that system itself. This bifurcated framework of economic analysis affords a new format for examining real estate returns, how they are represented in the market place, who benefits from them, and how resultant inequalities might be avoided in urban development
The Impacts of Urban Morphology on Housing Indoor Thermal Condition in Hoi An City, Vietnam
Assessing the impact of urban morphology on the indoor thermal condition of housing in a tourism city in central Vietnam — Hoi An City is the main objective of this study. The research process is carried out by a variety of methods including in situ surveys, measuring with temperature sensors, data analysis and map analysis. Four houses, located in two areas with different urban forms, were selected for measurement within one month to investigate the differences in housing indoor temperature. The impact of urban morphology on housing was thereafter determined. Temperature sensors were permanently installed in 4 houses; based on these empirical measurements and data collected, the paper addresses solutions to improve urban morphology and indoor thermal condition
Community Participation in Decision Making Processes in Urban Planning: The Case of Kaunas
Participation in decision-making processes foreshadows enabling citizens, communities, non-governmental organizations and other interested parties to influence the formulation of policies and laws affecting them. The purpose of this study is not only to review Lithuanian legal documents but also to analyse recent processes in Kaunas city planning. Kaunas city is undergoing various urban processes, which do not always meet the needs of the community. This study presents an analysis of the forms of community involvement in the urban planning processes and survey data on the effectiveness of community involvement. The methodology requires using a sociological survey with representatives of the city community and a comparative analysis between legal obligations and actual urbanization process.
Urban Land-use and Traffic Congestion: Mapping the Interaction
The interaction between transport, land-uses and travel patterns produce diverse transportation problems in urban cities with traffic congestion as the most visible manifestation. Traffic congestion is a frequent phenomenon in most cities around the globe. This paper reviews the interaction between land-use traffic congestion through published literature. The objective of this study is to encourage and provide researchers with future research directions in land-use and traffic congestion. For this purpose, a systematic review was performed analysing 45 articles from the year 2010 to 2020 using a descriptive approach. Subsequently, the results of the study show that although the interaction between land-use and traffic congestion has gained currency in developed countries far less is known on this subject in developing parts of the world, though new evidence is steadily accumulating. Consequently, limitations of this work are presented, opportunities are identified for future lines of research. Finally, the conclusion confirms the need for further research addressing the methodological concerns
SIMURG_CITIES: Meta-Analysis for KPI\u27s of Layer-Based Approach in Sustainability Assessment
SIMURG_CITIES, is the research and development project that is developed under the main project named as SIMURG: “A performance-based and Sustainability-oriented Integration Model Using Relational database architecture to increase Global competitiveness of Turkish construction industry in industry 5.0 era”, is the relational database model that is currently being developed in a dissertation for performance-based development and assessment of sustainable and sophisticated solutions for the built environment. This study aims to analyze the key performance indicators (KPIs) at «Cities Level» for the smart city concept that is referred to as «Layers» in the master project. KPIs for the concept of a smart city is determined by using the meta-analysis technique. Hence, the three most reputable urban journals issued from 2017 through 2020 are reviewed in this study. In addition to this, models of smart city frameworks/assessment tools/KPIs are reviewed within the context of this paper; environment, economy and governance were found to have domain themes on the urban sustainability according to the literature review. Consequently, efficient and integrated urban management, environmental monitoring and management, public and social services of urban development and sustainability are found to be the most important dimensions in urban and regional planning. SIMURG_CITIES evaluation models for urban projects can use the findings of this paper
Enhancing Security in Affordable Housing: The Case of Prince Fawaz Project
The present study argues that the urban form of affordable housing projects affects safety and security. The study examines the level of safety and security in the Prince Fawaz project proposing recommendations that enhance it. Theories and approaches concerned with the environmental crime are initially reviewed. Then, urban and architectural features as well as crime rates and patterns are documented. Also, trace and behaviour observations are carried out. The observations monitored urban features and behaviours associated with crime or fear of crime. Residents’ perception for security and fear of crime is extracted through a questionnaire. A Space Syntax is processed and linked with the questionnaire and observation outputs. Observations demonstrate a semblance of fear of crime which is supported by records of car and home theft. Although the questionnaire reflects a suitable level of security, it points to peripheral spaces and areas around mosques and shops as the less secure. However, enhancing security in the Prince Fawaz project requires urban interventions including controlling access to peripheral spaces, reviving areas detected to be unsafe, repositioning elements causing visual obstacles and enhancing appearance by vegetation and sustainable maintenance. Besides, reformulating the movement network so that an appropriate integration between residents and strangers is achieved. On the conceptual level, the study proves that none of the theories of environmental crime can act as a comprehensive approach; but each can partly work
Industrialization and Urbanization in Turkey at the beginning of the 20th Century
The starting point of this study is the fact that every production system entails a specific spatial organization and changes its physical environment. This research is an attempt to understand the industrialization period of Turkey’s Early Republican Period (1930’s) and the spatial effects of the new production system. Right after the Turkish War of Independence, The Republican Government of Turkey had aimed to establish an independent country and started to carry out a modernization and contemporization project. This project had different dimensions appealing to the institutional, economical, social and civic aspects of Turkey. The economical dimension included the industrialization and economical independence of Turkey. Besides its economical, political and social goals, the Republican Government had aimed to change the physical appearance of the country. The Government’s first goal was to turn the country into the space of the National Turkish Republic State from an empire’s land. Secondly, the small towns or settlements of the country we\u27re supposed to become modern cities, the places of modernity, just like the modern cities of the industrial and developed countries of the world. That explains why the factories which were set up all around the country had played such a crucial role in the modernization period of Turkey at the beginning of the Republican era. They were not only economic achievements of the state; they also affected their physical and social environments and introduced the modern way of living particularly where they were set up