An analysis of the change of the user preferences in the coastline over time: A case study of Trabzon coastline

Ongoing spatial changes across history, population increase, unplanned housing disregarding historical structure, uncontrollable growth of urban areas have resulted in the destruction of the relationships between the man and the city. These changes have shifted the way men perceive and understand the environment in a negative way; and thus they have begun to dislike and not to prefer it. Based upon these issues, this study deals with the differences of perception and preference of the concept of city, if any, between old aged people- who know what the city was like in the past and those belonging to the young generation. Firstly, the study reviewed the literature on the environment preferences focusing on the result of the studies dealing with this issue. It also dwelt on the relationship between the visual quality and the environment preferences, giving the study a research model in connection with the concepts of visual quality. This study was investigated to find out whether this research model in connection with the concepts of visual quality influenced environment preferences or not. In the first step, a group of experts, in the second, a group of non-experts were asked to evaluate coastal line in Trabzon using the concepts of visual quality. The third one, the group of non-experts were asked to determine whether they preferred the old or the new structure of the city. The fourth step analyzed altogether the data collected in the previous steps and tested the hypotheses. By this, the study aimed to find which structure of the city the participants liked/disliked most and why.Key Words: Environmental Preferences, Visual Quality, Old and New city Views