Urban Development Policy and Urban Sprawl in Turkey

Abstract

In the second half of twentieth century, metropolitan areas have undergone diverse structural changes with the increasing introduction of progressive technologies in transportation and communication. Urban sprawl has many effects on urban environment as unplanned expansion of the city, increased energy consumption, increased traffic congestion. The detrimental consequences of urban sprawl can be solved through planned decentralization. The diverse existing urban systems must be coordinated with the new development areas in order to establish the integrity of the macroform. In countries where planning policies and codes have not been effectively implemented, metropolitan growth seems to have inevitably taken the form of urban sprawl. Turkey is not much different from other developing countries where metropolitan growth is due to heavy rural migration and results in urban sprawl. The multiple plans no matter how technically well prepared were not effectively implemented due to lack of determined policies and the multiplicity of speculative market forces and their heavy demands in Turkey. Thus, metropolitan growth was consequently transformed into an oil-spill form in most of the Turkish cities. This paper is concerned with the notion of urban sprawl in metropolitan cities in Turkey. This paper aims to discuss the impacts of planning tools and regulations in the sprawl of the city. The consequent urban sprawl thus changes the envisaged macroform of the urban settlement profoundly.