Changes of neighbourhood and neighbourhood mukhtar's from administrative perspective in transforming cities (Sakarya case)

Throughout history, transforming urban structures, whether they are called neighborhoods or any other living center, have led to social, cultural and physical changes. In the traditional neighborhoods of the Ottoman period, this situation gave rise to a number of administrative needs and neighborhood mukhtar organisation emerged as a result of these needs and assumed important roles. As the transformation continued in terms of economic, physical, population and globalization, the scales of neighborhoods and thus cities grew and neighborhood mukhtars lost their functionality. When the administrative concerns of the state administration were added to this process, the neighborhood mukhtar has not gained the value it deserves. At this point, the institution of the mukhtar, which is far from its historicity and potential functionality, has been overshadowed by modern cities. In the first part of our study, the elements of the traditional Ottoman neighborhood structure and the emergence of the mukhtar organisation were explained, and an evaluation was made through the transformative effect of the Tanzimat period. Subsequently, the process from the Republican period to the present day was analyzed and the continuity of change was emphasized. Finally, the current position of the mukhtar organisation, which is the embodiment of participation and primary proximity to the citizen in terms of local governments, in Sakarya province has been tried to be examined by semi-structured interview method. As a result of the results obtained, it is obvious that neighborhoods as living spaces and the mukhtar organisation are far away from the Ottoman traditional neighborhood period. In the face of this situation, the main goal of our thesis is to increase the functionality of neighborhood mukhtar organisation with various methods in order to keep up with the transformation and to restore its historical heritage.