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III. EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON SCIENCE, ART & CULTURE
ECSAC’18 – NORTHERN CYPRUS
Gazimağusa, October12-14, 2018

OP-49
THE ISSUE OF AN UNPLANNED DEVELOPMENT IN PLANED CITIES

Yaşar Bahri ERGEN (1)

1. Siirt University Faculty of Fine Arts and Design, Department of City and Regional Planning

The increase in the population and the development of technology in the world accelerated the migration from
rural to urban areas due to economic requirements. The population of Turkey was about 13 million at the time of
the foundation of the Republic, and about %30 of the population of the country had lived in rural areas and %70
in cities. Today’s total population is around 82 million, %8 of whom live in rural areas, and %92 in urban areas.
Rapid population growth has brought urban growth to new settlement areas along with urbanization and continuous
construction in urban settlements. This growth has continuously brought new additional urban development, and
existing infrastructure is maintained by local governments through plan renovations and plan revisions. This planning
approach, using plan revisions or partial plan renovations, has led to the notion of partial planning as patches are
developed without plan integrity. In urban planning, plan revision should express the integrity of the plan and form a
perfect plan structure in drawings and reports with numerical expressions. Revision development planning is intended
to make functional changes in the built environment of the city. As long as the existing infrastructure of the city is not
changed, the gecekondu phenomena arises. Therefore, it is clear that today’s cities have experienced infrastructural
problems due to the current planning approach in Turkey. This planning approach reduces the quality of life in today’s
cities and even results in natural disasters. Here are some frequently experienced infrastructural problems:
1. floods in the cities,
2. landslides,
3. water interruptions,

4. electricity cuts,
5. inadequate sewer systems.
These problems occur as problems of contemporary cities, whereas planning that is comprehensive rather than
partial should be an obligation.

Unless there is a need to increase urban population density due to population increase and urban growth,
conservation needs to be done in urban areas. However, if there is a need to increase population density, decisions
must be made regarding urban renewal, including infrastructure. This research specifies this problem in practices and
the need for an urban planning solution. It describes the improvements in the quality of life in our cities, delineates the
limits of artificial interventions in natural areas, and emphasizes that cities are not rental properties, but living spaces.

Keywords: urbanization, gecekondu, infrastructure, quality of life, plan integrity, partial planning

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