Reading the impact of urban transformation projects on everyday life from the perspective of life quality: Saraycık neighbourhood - Ankara

In the last decade after the urban transformation law, urban transformation projects produced for many reasons, such as disaster risk, play an essential role in shaping the urban space. These transformation projects bring along a social transformation beyond a physical transformation that shapes the urban space. Urban transformation projects, which have multidimensional effects on society, directly affect individuals' quality of life and satisfaction with their environment. In this context, the study aims to perceive the effects of urban transformation projects on residents' daily lives regarding the quality of life. The urban transformation project produced in Saraycık Neighbourhood, a neighbourhood consisting of detached unlicensed buildings in Ankara Sincan district, was determined as a sample for the study. The neighbourhood, which was previously composed of detached buildings with one or two floors, was declared a transformation area by the Sincan Municipality because the living environment had become socially run-down, and TOKİ (the Housing Development Administration of the Republic of Türkiye) produced an urban transformation project in the neighbourhood. TOKİ constructed five to ten storey buildings and a living environment with social and technical infrastructure areas such as social, cultural and commercial areas with the urban transformation project. People living in this area before the transformation project were given flats in these multi-storey buildings. The study examines the effect of the mentioned physical transformation on the daily lives and quality of life of the people living in the area before the transformation. The opinions of the people living before the area's transformation about the new living environment and the change in their lives were collected using a semi-structured interview technique. The interview results show that the quality of life of those living in the area before the transformation was affected by the change in their daily lives. People had difficulty adapting to the new area created by the transformation.