Farklı Sosyo-ekonomik Yapıya Sahip İlçelerde Kamusal Mekan Kullanımı

Abstract

Kamusal mekanların içinde bulundukları dönem ve toplumla birlikte yaşadığı dönüşümler, bazı araştırmacılar tarafından çöküş, bazıları tarafından canlanış, bazıları tarafından ise normal bir süreç olarak ele alınmış, ancak bu konuda yapılan alan çalışmalarının yetersizliği ve sosyal bilimlerin nitel boyutunu çalışma zorluğu gibi nedenlerden dolayı net bir sonuca varılamamıştır. Ayrıca, kamusal mekanların çok sayıda disiplin tarafından ele alınıyor olması, kamusal mekanların tanımlanmasında çeşitliliğe ve buna bağlı olarak da sınıflandırmasında karmaşıklığa yol açmaktadır. Tüm bu karmaşıklığa rağmen, tüm disiplinler tarafından kamusal mekanlardan beklenen ortak özellikler; sosyal yaşantıya olanak sağlaması, çeşitli kullanım ve aktivitelerin bulunması, erişim ve bağlantılarının sağlanmış olması ile özel bir kimlik ve imaja sahip olmasıdır. Bununla birlikte, kamusal mekanlardan beklenen ve kamusal mekanın kalitesini ortaya koyan bu özellikler, farklı sosyo-ekonomik yapılarda farklı şekilde yorumlanabilir ve kamusal mekanlarda farklı şekilde karşılık bulabilirler. Bu nedenle, kamusal mekanları oluştururken tasarımcı ve plancıların, sosyo-ekonomik farklılıkları da göz önünde bulundurmaları gerekmektedir. Sosyo-ekonomik düzeyleri farklı olan kamusal mekanların kullanımları ve bu alanlardaki kullanıcıların mekana yönelik kalite algıları arasında farklılığın bulunup bulunmadığını, varsa bu farklılığın nelerden kaynaklandığını tespit etmeyi amaçlayan bu tez için “farklı sosyo-ekonomik düzeylere sahip kamusal mekanların kullanımı, algılanması ve bu mekanlardan beklentiler arasında anlamlı farklılıklar bulunmaktadır” hipotezi geliştirilmiştir. Tez kapsamında öncelikle çalışmanın amacı ve hipotezde değinilen kamusal mekanın kalitesi hakkında kuramsal bilgiye yer verilmiş ve daha önce yapılan çalışmalar yorumlanmıştır. Sonrasında günümüzde özellikle küreselleşme tartışmaları ile birlikte hız kazanan kamusal mekanın yönetimi, homojenizasyonu ve çöküşü ile canlanışı tartışmaları üzerinde durulmuş ve bu tartışmaların farklı sosyo-ekonomik gruplar açısından önemine değinilmiştir. Bu tez kapsamında ekonomik politikaların da etkisi ile çok hızlı mekansal değişimlerin yaşandığı İstanbul’da farklı sosyo-ekonomik yapıya sahip 4 mahalleden (2 tanesi üst sosyo-ekonomik dereceden, 2 tanesi ise alt sosyo-ekonomik dereceden) 4 adet kamusal mekan tipi seçilmiştir. Farklı sosyo-ekonomik yapılarda bulunan bu mahallelerden seçilen parklarda gözlem ve sözlü görüşme yöntemlerine başvurulmuştur. Alan çalışmasında elde edilen sözlü görüşme verileri sosyal bilimlerde nitel verilerin analiz edilmesinde kullanılan MAXQDA programı ile analiz edilmiş ve böylece araştırma soruları cevaplanarak hipotez test edilmiştir. Analizler yapılırken kullanılan başlıca uygulamalar; Belge Portresi Oluşturma, Kod-Matris Taraması, Tek Vaka Modellemesi ve Etiket Bulutu olarak belirlenmiştir. Yapılan her bir analiz neticesinde ortaya çıkan görsel bulguların ve haritalamaların farklı sosyo-ekonomik gruplar açısından ne anlama geldiği ortaya konulmaya çalışılmıştır. Sonrasında ise ortaya çıkan tüm bulgular mevcut literatür ile karşılaştırılarak yorumlanmıştır. Sonuç olarak, hipotez kabul edilmiş ve farklı sosyo-ekonomik grupların kamusal mekana yönelik tutum ve algıları arasındaki benzerlik farklılıklar ortaya konulmuştur. Bu tezin, mekânsal planlama ve tasarım çalışmalarında özellikle sosyal verilerin analizi ve değerlendirilmesi açısından katkı sağlayacağı düşünülmektedir.

Throughout the history, developments of both democracy and civilizations with successful urban life have been provided by public spaces where people share the belief and experiences, exchange the ideas, and participate into commercial life. Public spaces contribute to identification of cultural, social, economic and political functions of the cities. Therefore, the public spaces of the cities contain many clues about the cities and their inhabitants. Transformations of public spaces together with society and period have been considered as decline, revival or normal process by several researchers. However, it was not reached to a clear conclusion for reasons such as limited studies on this subject and the challenges of qualitative social sciences. In addition, have been handled by several disciplines of public spaces lead to diversity in the definition of public spaces and complexity of their classification accordingly. Despite all this complexity, the common features of public spaces qualified by all disciplines are classified under the following four qualities: they are accessible; people are engaged in activities there; comfortable and have a good image; and finally, they are sociable place; one where people meet each other and take people when they come to visit. Accessibility of a public space could be judged by its connections to its surroundings, both visual and physical. A successful public space should be easily get in and get through and, it should be visible both from a distance and up close. Whether a public space is comfortable and presenting itself with good image is considered as key to its success. Comfort is qualified perceptions about safety, cleanliness, and the availability of places to sit. Activities are considered as the basic building blocks of a place. Activities give people a reason to come to public space and return. If people find nothing to do, public space will be empty and that generally means that something is wrong. Sociability is considered as difficult quality for a place to achieve, but once attained it becomes an unmistakable feature. When people see friends, meet and greet their neighbors, and feel comfortable interacting with strangers, they would tend to feel a stronger sense of place or attachment to their community, and to the place that fosters these types of social activities. However, these features that are expected from public spaces and revealing the quality of public spaces could be interpreted in several ways by different socio-economic groups and they find response in a different way in public spaces. Therefore, while creating public spaces, designers and planners should take into account socio-economic differences between places. The hypothesis that “there are significant differences between public spaces from different socio-economic level in terms of their usage, perception and expectations” has been put forward for this thesis which aims to find that both public space usage of different socio-economic groups and availability of differences among quality perception among them. Besides, it was aimed to identify differences where they arise from. In scope of this thesis, literature review has been conducted in the direction of both aim of the study and quality of public space that was addressed in the hypothesis, and previous studies were commented. Afterwards, discussions on management, homogenization, decline and revival of public spaces that outstanding with especially globalization arguments have been emphasized, and the importance of these debates have been handled in terms of different socio-economic groups. In recent years, many researchers especially in social sciences have focused on neighborhood scale to solve urban problems, and they also have given importance neighborhood scale studies for the solution of social problems, as well. The districts of Turkey have been classified under 9 classes (A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, and C-) by an international real estate company which is called REIDIN. This classification was presented with a socio-economic rating report is based on welfare, livability and cultural level of Turkey. In scope of this thesis, 4 neighborhood parks were selected from A+ and C- districts to demonstrate differences between two extreme socio-economic groups. Etiler Sanatcilar Park and Goztepe 60. Yil Park were selected to represent A+ districts, Sultanbeyli Golet Park and Sancaktepe Meydan Park represent C- districts of Istanbul where experienced rapid spatial changes together with economic policies. As a research method, observation and deep interview were conducted in the neighborhood parks where are visited by different socio-economic groups. Face to face - deep interview was conducted with 51 visitors that were selected by random sampling method from study areas in May -2015. Each interview that 12-15 minutes length were recorded by sound recorder device, and also written notes were kept in papers. The records that obtained by oral interviews were transmitted to MAXQDA software as coded datasets. Before the oral interviews, the codes were roughly determined resulting from preliminary research on both quality of public spaces and their usage by different socio-economic groups. In the analysis process, new codes and sub codes were created in accordance with the unexpected details of negotiations. Each interview document that was created for each study area where the oral interviews were conducted was transmitted to software separately. The total four documents from four study areas were classified under the two groups as low socio-economic group and high socio-economic groups. The hypothesis was tested the following analysis by MAXQDA that is used to analyze qualitative data in social sciences. The main tools that were used in analysis; Document portrait, Code matrix browser, MAX Maps – One case model and Tag cloud. Visual findings and mappings that resulting from each analysis revealed the meaning of public spaces in terms of different socio-economic groups. Expectations and behavior in public spaces, in addition to perceptions of them were differentiated between the groups in these areas, since having different life styles, daily urban habits that lead to cultural and economic differences. Thus, the findings that resulted from study areas in scope of the thesis confirm the hypothesis that “there are significant differences between socio-economic groups in terms of use and perception of public spaces and expectations from them”. It is considered that the emergence of these differences resulting from not only economic structure, but also education level, environmental attitudes, length of residence in the city and household type that are thought to be connected with economic structure. The constraints of this thesis which is thought could contribute to literature in terms of public space use of different socio-economic groups are both conducted in a narrow environment since time and supply restriction and excluding of middle income groups from the thesis. In addition, it was difficult to convince of high socio-economic group for deep interview since their cautious attitudes to the strangers. Therefore, it could be recommended that conducting deeper interview with less and less people for further studies. In addition, a study that be conducted on different social groups in public space of urban scale apart from neighborhood scale could contribute to literature.