Looking at urban regeneration from the viewpoint of urban safety: Istanbul’s crime areas

Abstract

In today’s metropolitan cities, urban crimes are increasing continuously. The growth of urban economies are becoming more and more a disadvantage of the cities and, as a result thereof, the occurrence of urban poverty and the rapid increase in the ratio of such poverty plays the most important role in the increase of urban crime. Thus, every day many more urban people become the target and victim of various urban crimes. Today, more than half of all crimes in Turkey are committed in Istanbul. This percentage increased steadily within the past years. There is no doubt that urban decay and the deprived areas within the city played a great role in the increase of crimes. Particularly the urban decay processes experienced in various regions of the city prepare the basis for crime. In this study, the crime phenomenon in the districts of Beyoglu and Umraniye, the districts with the highest crime ratio within the metropole city of Istanbul, will be analyzed using social, demographical, locational and criminological data, overlapping the socio-economic data with the locational data. The study will also be supported with the results of a similar study performed previously on the districts of Fatih and Uskudar.