Istanbul's new housing trends: The structural analysis of housing pattern in the process of urbanization and globalization

Abstract

This article investigates impacts of the urbanization and globalization process in the city of Istanbul regarding to housing preferences and changing housing patterns. During the last two decades, Istanbul’s socio-cultural and urban identities have been undergoing radical transformation. Globalization, internationalization and the rapid flow of information, as the case in the rest of the world, have played a significant role in changing the city and her people. The multi-dimensional outcomes of this transformation have manifested themselves through the peculiarities of activity patterns, behavioral relationships, social and cultural norms, as well as architectural and urban patterns. Process of economic and social change that occurs in our country and all over the world requires to, continuously, define urbanization and housing problems in the light of this change. In this context, it is essential to focus on the subject of quality of environment in newly formed urban areas. In the process of quality search in urban environment and especially in housing environment it is necessary to identify which objective determines the “of good quality environment“. Based on these above arguments, article aims to analyze and discuss the transformation in the new housing developments in Istanbul in the context of quality of life issues. The article, which consists of five sections, has two three sections besides the introduction and conclusion. In the first part a theoretical framework is established, explaining and discussing culture, continuity and change in the process of urbanization. The second part includes the latest housing trends in Istanbul with the subjects of economical, cultural and political conditions that Turkey is already in and related. The Third part examines new residential patterns catering to the upper classes, which have been emerging in Istanbul since 1980 will be considered. We will, therefore, discuss the emerging patterns of social and cultural differentiation in Istanbul through the examples of the exclusive suburbs in the third part. At the end, we argue that recent housing projects and trends represent new forms of organizing social and cultural differences, and could be read as urban forms, which create segregation and reproduce