The urban fabric of Turkish cities

Abstract

Urban development of Turkish cities has been strongly influenced by their fast-changing socioeconomic and political framework. In their turn, inherited morphological elements and their spatial organization influence today’s cities, their functioning, and their socioeconomic organization. This paper aims at identifying building and urban fabric types and at studying their spatial organization in Karşıyaka, Izmir, through MFA, an innovative computer-aided protocol. The outcomes are analyzed and interpreted regarding Turkish urban development history. The eight identified fabrics show a close correspondence to specific periods of Turkish urbanization. The model observed in Karşıyaka can be representative of many urban landscapes of Turkish metropolitan coastal regions. The paper contributes to the discussion and research on the identification of urbanization models for Turkish cities and their current development trends. Moreover, it represents a first step for future research on the relationship between urban morphology and environmental psychology, as well as urban planning and urban design guidelines.