Sustainable aspects of traditional Ottoman neighbourhoods in modern Turkish urban settlements

Abstract

Ottoman settlements have nature and human originated concepts, both physically and socially. The smallest unit of the Ottoman urban settlement is the quarter which has an organic texture. It can also be defined as an administrative and social unit. The houses of the rich and the poor were located next to each other and dwellings of a neighbourhood had always had the responsibility of helping and protecting each other with close neighbourhood relations. The existence of public participation in social organizations including humanistic values can be realised. The feeling of belonging had raised the environmental quality both physically and socially. The rapid and dense growth of cities and socio-cultural transformation of the society from traditional to modern have destroyed the neighbourhood order. As the dwellers of them have no common backgrounds and cultures, the relations get weakened. People who live in these modern settlements have not felt themselves belonging to the place and neighbourhood relations have weakened, and as the responsibility of protecting and watching each other has disappeared the crime rate at the common spaces of the settlements has increased. The neighbourhoods of the rich and the poor have been entirely separated. Some of them are designed using the traditional forms which cannot be defined as sustainability of traditional socio-cultural values which are independent from changing life styles. Sustainable aspects of traditional Ottoman neighborhoods in modern Turkish settlements with their physical and socio-cultural environmental features will be examined in this paper