Urban transformation and aging in place within the context of elderly-space relationship: The case of Istanbul-Ünalan neighborhood

The main purpose of this thesis is to reveal the experiences and opinions of the elderly concerning urban transformation through drawing on the theoretical perspectives of aging in place, space and the right to the city. Istanbul-Ünalan Neighborhood, which has been in the process of urban transformation through bargaining between individual property owners and contractors, was chosen as the research location, and face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 44 (22 women and 22 men) people with aged 65 and over. To increase the reliability of the data, interviews were also conducted with the neighborhood headperson, Üsküdar Municipality Urban Transformation Official and DAP Construction Regional Official. In this context, the specific purpose of this thesis is to disclose: to what extent these elderly have been informed about urban transformation; whether the contractor companies have ensured the participation of the elderly while planning its urban transformation; whether the elderly want urban transformation and their reasons; whether there are disagreements among the stakeholders (private firms, public institutions and the elderly living in the neighborhood) and the main reasons for the disagreements; the opinions of the elderly on whether they want to live in the new building, new social environment and whether they could adapt to their new place if urban transformation takes place. Access to the participants was mainly achieved through the snowball sampling method, which is one of the qualitative research sampling types. The data obtained through face-to-face in-depth interviews were analyzed utilizing the qualitative "descriptive analysis technique". The main finding of this thesis can be specified in the following way: the elderly indicated that they want urban transformation due to the need for renovations of their old and nondurable housing buildings especially against earthquake risk. However, they also specified that they do not trust private companies due to their beliefs that private companies would not provide them with the full value of their assets, their neighborhood space would be gentrified and thus they might be displaced from their own space due to companies own interests in making profits.The fear of extorsion of their rights and insecurity have resulted in the delay of making agreements between private companies and elderly citizens in Ünalan Neighborhood, and thus slowing down the urban transformation process. It has been emphasized that the state is the authority to prevent all kinds of usurpation of rights in the transformation process and it is underlined that the state should assume the role of arbitrator and prevent usurpation of rights in the process.