The evaluation of urban parks in the modern and postmodern process in terms of social sustainability

Cities have developed and changed in different ways in terms of their meanings and functions due to some reasons in the historical process. The new forms of production, which started with the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, directly affected the way of life and relations of people, and as a result of the change and new thinking systems covering the society, a new era called "modern" emerged. The concept of the modern city, which has been developing with industrialization, has separated residential, business and shopping areas together with common living areas. However, as a result of the inability to use the common areas in a functional way, social class differences have emerged and social separations have been experienced. This segregation has led to class divisions and in the years following the Industrial Revolution, the importance of urban parks, which are planned urban green spaces, has gradually increased, as intense urbanization, the restructuring process of the city and the decrease in natural environments have brought unhealthy living conditions in cities. However, as solution-oriented cities; Urban parks, which were designed to facilitate the fluidity of capital in modernism, lost their functionality in the process of capitalist accumulation after industrialization. The modern city plan has been subjected to some criticism and the trust in this system of thought has been damaged. In the light of these criticisms, some studies have been carried out in order to find solutions to the problems that affect urban life and to these problems. Since the middle of the 20th century, the postmodern phenomenon has found a place in the literature in the social structure that has been reshaped thanks to the developments in the fields of economy, transportation, communication and technology. However, the social aspect of today's urban parks has been neglected with the postmodern period, and urban parks, like other urban public spaces, seem to have been shaped according to the interests of the market. This thesis study primarily aimed to examine the role of parks in terms of social sustainability in modern and postmodern processes. Afterwards, the feature of urban parks to bring social groups together and the effect of the changes experienced in the periods on the development of space were examined. In order to obtain the essential information required as a working method, national and international studies and online resources from different university libraries have formed the theoretical foundations. Secondary data analysis was used as another study method. In this context, checklists have been created and whether the functions of the workspaces have served their purpose from past to present have been compared. The locations of the study areas, the historical process, design and planning features and the functions they have in these processes have been revealed by examining the studies made on the internet and literature research. In this study, domestic and foreign city parks, which were planned and designed in the modern and postmodern process, were discussed. As an example of a domestic urban park for the modern period; Youth Park was chosen, and the international example was Central Park. The domestic sample study area made in the postmodern process was determined as Wonderland Park, the overseas sample Disneyland. With the modern period, city parks have had an important social role in urban life and have been used as a tool to shape the social structure. With the postmodern process, urban parks have been placed at the focal point of the design for tourism and commercial investments. At the same time, urban parks entered into a transformation in this process and were revived with the thematic park function and lost their functions to create new rent areas. While urban parks peculiar to the lower and middle income classes living in the city center have lost their quantity and quality, the upper income classes have created new safe and private recreation areas on the outskirts of the city. The possibility that this situation, which reinforces social segregation, may cause social conflict in the future should be taken into consideration, and all the actors of the urban space should take this into account when making decisions on the most important component of the urban landscape, urban parks. Keywords: Urban Parks, Modernism, Postmodernism, Urban Space, Urban Planning, Social Sustainability.