The effects of urban transformation on local governments and urban identity: Adana-Çukurova district-Belediye Evleri Neighborhood

With the Industrial Revolution that emerged in England after the 19th century, the quickly increasing labor requirement in the cities caused an increase immigration from rural areas to cities and accelerated the urbanization process. Societies have experienced a rapid urbanization process from the 19th century to the present time, passing through the phases of change and transformation. Since the beginning of the 1950s, after the intense immigration and negligence towards cities without a plan, program and control, squatting, illegal construction, construction without complying with the zoning legislation and urban planning and planning principles have led to an unhealthy and irregular urbanization process. The term of urban transformation has emerged as a solution to these social and spatial problems that occur in cities. The term of "urban identity", which is expressed as a set of values that reminds a thought about that city in the minds of even those who are not in the city, is shaped only in some cities today. Urban transformation projects have begun to intensify in globalizing cities and in areas that are gradually destroyed and abandoned with the change in living conditions. At the same time, this destruction causes the city and its inhabitants to break their connection with the past of the city. Since the transformation projects do not provide a solution to the identity problem, cities are rapidly becoming de-identified. Urban transformation projects are the projects carried out by local governments in order to determine the risky areas of the city, to renew the aging or collapsed slum areas and to bring new economic values to these areas. Since the projects directly concern the people living in the city, the citizens should have a say in the decisions to be taken by the local governments about the urban transformation projects. In order to find solutions to existing problems, it is of great importance that urban transformation practices are materialized in a multi-stakeholder and holistic approach. The thesis includes the theoretical investigations, field research, results and suggestion about urban transformation. The typical features of the Belediye Evleri, in the Çukurova district of Adana province, whose urban transformation application is planned, were examined, evaluated and the results were obtained by synthesising the survey study and analysis studies with the conceptual framework. In line with these results, solution offers for the future of urban transformation in our country were presented.