Urban amalgamation: Sustainable identity and urban regeneration process in historical urban context

Today, apart from globalization, it is significant to increase the awareness of local and authentic city center by providing identity and cultural richness to be shared, protected and adopted to the changing dynamics so as to ensure cultural, physical and social sustainability in the cities. Ulus is a representative case of these city centers that has its own spatial qualities as the authenticity and identity such as historical aspect with its own social and cultural structure and its identity values have been damaged in the transformation process. In this research, the aim is to analyze the regeneration of an urban identity not just from the perspective of physical but also social and spatial dynamics of the area. As a methodology, a theoretical discussion has been conducted in the context of urban identity related to sustainability by discovering urban regeneration. In this context, firstly, management strategies specified for Ulus are designed so as to revitalize its identity. Secondly districts from Ulus have been determined as representative case studies to demonstrate this regeneration process to get the approach from macro to micro scale. On the base of literature review, the meaning of "sense of place" was investigated in detail. The conducted bibliometric analyses within the literature review demonstrated the importance of the place attachment for urban regeneration and sustainable urban identity and a framework with indicators of sense of place and place attachment has been defined for investigation. Based on this framework, with the help of survey observation and mapping techniques, the main result is to understand the importance of the urban identity and urban regeneration process in the historical city center. In conclusion, the problems and the potential solutions have been recommended for a successful transformation process to protect urban identity/authenticity regarding sustainability, while responding to the requirements of users in terms of attractivity and livability.