The role of children in the making formation of urban policies: A practice in Antakya-Hatay

Urban policies can be defined as tools contributing to the social-physical construction of city and establishment of city profile. It is possible for these tools, whose right of use belong to the society, to become functional in a democratic structure by covering all groups of the society. In the formation process of urban policies, the diversity of participatory actors (women, men, old, young, children, disabled, restricted, etc.) contributes to the proper design of the city that has a social aspect. The outcome of the urban policy-making process including multiple views points to the existence of more democratic, more experienced and more favourable cities. In this study, the impact levels and outcomes of children participation from different social groups on urban policy-making process are evaluated. The study, which emphasizes the necessity of shaping the city by producing policies recognizing children's right of speech, covers the example of Antakya district of Hatay province. For the field research, which tries to reveal children's sense of belonging to the city in Antakya according to the level of participation in urban design, survey questions directed to children aged between 11-17 were used. In addition to this, one group for both from private and public schools were created according to purposeful sampling method, focus group interviews were conducted and the data were analysed and interpreted. This study is of vital importance in terms of potential for the evaluation of examples of applications from world and Turkish literature and presenting suggestions on scale of Antakya-Hatay. Keywords: Urban, Urban Space, Urban Policy, Child, Child Participation, Child and Urban, Antakya, Hatay