Healthy Environments or High Prices? Residents’ Perspective to the Urban Regeneration Projects in Atasehir, Istanbul

Abstract

Regeneration movement is an irreplaceable necessity for Istanbul not only to prevent the destructions of earthquake and improve physical quality, but also to enhance the quality of life, reduce social vulnerability and maintain both social and physical sustainability. In Turkey, the term of urban regeneration has had different descriptions according to various agencies and stakeholders since 1980s. While academicians evaluate the regeneration projects as planning tools for having sustainable and high quality urban environments from social, ecological and economic approaches, investors for instance justify that they need more development rights and need to make more money to build good condition buildings for having that kind of neighborhoods. Residents, however, are the most important stakeholders to decide the future of the neighborhood. This research aims to evaluate what the residents’ satisfaction level, perceptions and expectations are about the conditions and the possible urban regeneration movements in the neighborhood. 5 main headings are specified as main indicators for the research and conducted by surveys and interviews with current residents in the case of Atasehir, Barbaros Neighborhood which is a new developing and attractive area for real estate investments and urban regeneration projects in Istanbul. At the end of this research, it is stated that residents are very aware of the content of urban regeneration at practice level, and they believe in their neighborhood needs to regenerate for several reasons. They, however, discredit the term about having environment which is healthy and has high quality of life. They are just interested in the economic returns of the projects, and they expect to be built high level income housing to sell the prices out of the market.