Examining the concept of healthy street in the context of healthy cities: The case of Kastamonu Belediye Street

Health is an important source of life for the sustainability of routine life. The quality of cities and public spaces in cities is also very important for people to be physically, spiritually and socially healthy. Therefore, creating healthy spaces has a great role in creating a healthy city in order to achieve a good quality of life. Healthy cities are cities that are based on human health, increase the quality of life, create new spaces, provide social interaction, create an equal, safe, sustainable, healthy and green city and can provide this environment. Thus, healthy public spaces are always needed. Streets, which are public spaces, are places where people have social interaction and communication, meet their daily needs and participate in activities. However, nowadays, streets planned only for transportation have lost their attractiveness for people. The Healthy Street approach has been adopted and examined to restore streets to their original function as human-oriented spaces. This initiative addresses issues such as increasing vehicle traffic, air pollution, and noise, which have deteriorated the physical environment. The goal is to make streets healthier, more successful, of higher quality, safer, and more active. Healthy streets aim to target public health, create human-friendly environments, reduce environmental problems by improving the physical structures of the streets, and help eliminate inequalities by strengthening social interaction. Healthy streets practice creates a long-term model that improves the physical and mental health of users rather than what streets should look like. In this context, the study is supported by some hypotheses. These are: While measuring the quality of the street, the use of public space quality criteria and healthy street criteria together supports the study to make the street a healthier, higher quality space, and to make the streets not only planned for vehicles but also human-oriented places. In the study, Belediye Street, which is an axis where the historical buildings and commercial activities carried out in the buildings within the borders of the urban protected area in Kastamonu city center has been discussed. This street is a centrally located and heavily used corridor in the city. First, the findings regarding healthy street criteria were documented by photographing through observation on Belediye Street, which has been determined within the scope of the study. By measuring the sound level in the area, it has been determined whether it would have a negative impact on the health of the users by determining whether it could be defined as a noise or not. In order to determine the pedestrian and vehicle density in the area, counts were made in the morning, noon and evening on weekdays and weekends to reveal the pedestrian and vehicle density and the temporal change of this density. By conducting a survey with individuals who actively use the street and experts on the subject, the meaning of this place for the users and the health of the street were determined with the points collected. The collected data were transferred to the computer environment and a radar chart has been created, and the percentage values, arithmetic averages and standard deviation values of the data were calculated. As a result of the study, necessary design suggestions were presented to turn Belediye Street into a healthy street.