Hunting for the greener pastures:

the flip side of urban renewal

The ratio of housing to non-housing uses and how they are combined together strongly
influence a metropolitan district's character.
Positioning yourself in a desirable metropolitan hub where work, play, and living are
dynamically arranged is crucial to economic success in the information age.
All of these structures and processes are particularly intertwined in metropolitan area.
Character of an urban district is highly defined by the proportion of housing vs. non housing
uses in a district and the way they are mixed. The residential part represents the
heterogenous mix of housing protam(ranging from canal houses to high rise apartment
blocks.)
Non residential part covers (amenities, retail, offices, shops, production, administration etc. )
The idea is to highlight the unique characteristics of the present communities, to further
segregate them, and, where required, to officially acknowledge them as separate and distinct
entities. The communities themselves are made up of a number of neighborhood-sized sub-
units, most of which have their own shops and schools. Two main layers make up the city's
configuration. The bigger parts of the structure are the communities, and the lesser ones are
the neighbourhoods. There are no groups that intersect.
The relevant scale of mixed use is the walk able scale of urban blocks within an urban
district.''If we examine some of the social systems which actually exist for the individuals in
such a neighbourhood, the physical units defined by these various social systems do not all
define the same spatial neighbourhood.'' Each of the social systems we examine is a nodal
system. It is made of some sort of central node, plus the people who use this centre.

Joost W. van den Hoek, The MXI (Mixed-use Index), 44 th ISOCARP Congress 2008
‘’The urban space continues to disintegrate, particularly as a result of the mega projects and
mass housing investments, in parallel with the ongoing decomposition of social relations and
increasing distinction among social classes.’’

Emrah Altınok "To have or not to have, that is the question: The Unseen Dimensions of Housing
Question in Turkey, The Case of TOKİ-İstanbul in Post-2000 Period"
In suburbs, there is a lack of sufficient density of population to support cultural
facilities.These tremendous gray belts (suburbs) of relatively low density that rings the city,
results in decaying and being deserted or overcrowded.
Buildings are too standardized,blocks are too long and there is no mixture of primary and
secondary uses besides dwellings.
The city is therefore unplanned and is not designated for either clearance and renewal;
Therefore no concentration of residents.
It is evident today that there is some essential ingredient missing from artificial cities. When
compared with ancient cities that have acquired the patina of life, our modern attempts to
create cities artificially are, from a human point of view, entirely unsuccessful.

A CITY IS NOT A TREE,CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER

For a city to flourish and be diverse, it requires a variety of factors:
Extra streets must be added, the concentration of people must be heightened, room for
new primary uses must be found, public and private; suburban cities must rely on ready
access to a city for protection of their cultural opportunities.
A city should be compact and walkable and intensive on land use in order to create an
atmosphere of urbanity.
 The main thing to note about Istanbul is that it has grown to an unsustainable size and is on
the verge of running out of resources. An excessive housing supply does nothing but
encourage the development of poor metropolitan areas that only provide accommodation.Since
the ignored communities always relocate, slum removal has no bearing on the solution to the
overcrowding issue.
For a community to flourish and be diverse, it requires a variety of variables.
‘’We ought to look at densities like calories and vitamins; right amount is right because of how
they perform. And what is right differs in specific instances.’’
J.Jacobs