Suburbanization and housing estate life: Example of Gaziantep Karataş

The current study is based on understanding how the orientation from the urban center to the periphery of the city is organized. A well-known concept, suburbanization, is a new mechanism in Turkey developed against the dilemmas of urbanization and in the last two decades manifested itself in Gaziantep. The city has experienced significant urbanization under the influence of industrialization since the early 1980s. In the theoretical discussion of the study, it is aimed to reveal what the suburbanization and the suburban spaces produced correspond to and to understand their transformation in the historical process and their diversity in urban space. As a result of this process, the preference-based suburbanization process set out in this thesis and the suburban spaces articulated in the urban space were chosen as the focal point. It follows why and how the middle class turned to the suburbanization process into an important urban life practice. This study was completed by the evaluation of the findings which was attained from the sociological research carried out in order to make suburbanization process and urban life practices at inhabitants visible in Karataş, which was emerged as a result of the urbanization process at Gaziantep and reached an important position in the urban geography of Gaziantep in the history.