Urban development for Cretan exchanged within years after wars, Dörtyol – Icadiye case

Turkey, hosting a large amount of a refugee population, copes with a diverse range of challenges such as accommodation, employment, health services, education, and integration of refugees. These challenges address many types of research seeking solutions for current or future problems. However, Turkey has a long tradition with migrant flows starting with the Balkan Wars. Lessons can be learned from the historic applications and help to form contemporary ones. Balkan migrants arrived in multiple locations both ports and land borders in large numbers and scattered around the Ottoman Empire. In this paper, their journey has been described and a special neighborhood design "Icadiye" was examined in terms of social and cultural sustainability. For generations till today, this site is occupied by Cretan migrants preserving their identity and sustaining their culture for more than a century. Spatial analysis was conducted with site visits and examining archival records. Another parallel analysis was conducted by performing in-depth interviews with the current occupants of the site. Keywords: Balkan Wars, migrant waves, refugee settlements, spatial analysis, Icadiye Neighborhood