As a part of "the others" conceptualization and the problematics of representation of children in city planning in Turkey

ABSTRACT While modernism shapes up social relations and physical space according to the needsof the healthy, wealthy, successful, and male, we can hardly say that same sort of opportunities is aimed to be given to all subjects of the community in general. Thus, physical planning appears to be a mere tool of modernism that the shapes the outlines of the spatial organisation according to the modernist principles. That mentioned process of physical structuring seems to be the reason of the emergence of social groups which is sometimes labeled as the others. In our thesis the general condition of children which has been neglected as a social class and which has been commonly considered belonging to those "excluded" groups are being widely discussed. The above mentioned discussion is taken into consideration in two parts discussing spatial and non-spatial aspects of our area of research. In that context, certain insufficiencies were observed in legislative structure, in socio-economic organation, in media etc. Inevitably, those sorts of misconcepts due to the lack of sufficient common sense in public structure strongly effects the physical aspects of the spatial organisation. Finally, we can easily observe the lack of required levels of service elements for children both from the qualitative and qualitative points of views. The case study was carried out aiming to bring light unto the aspect of representative tools in that sense from the view point of a city planner trying to understand the characteristics of the spatial organisation. As a matter of fact, our research represents a sad tale, showing the non-existence of the spatial facilities required for the social, physical and intellectual needs ofchildren. Needless to say, the projection of the existing situation towards future may and will generate tomorrow's social structure which obviously will be full of problems. Thus, the effective attention of the sivil social organisations are urgently needed. Legislative measures should be taken into consideration at the governmental level to give the opportunity and right to representation of children as a social class in the general structure of our society. Key Words: Children, Representation, The Others