Research Information System
Özüduru B. H. (Executive), Gürel Z. A., Yiğiter A.
TUBITAK Project, 2019 - 2023
One of the main reasons
of existence of cities is the diversity and range of the built environments
that they cover. These environments are complex and multi-dimensional in
nature. There is a significant relationship between spatial characteristics of
built environments and the health and wellbeing of their inhabitants. High-quality,
active, healthy and livable built environments can be constructed only if the
structural elements of these environments can be dichotomized and the
relationship between socio-economic characteristics and physical attributes can
be explained thoroughly.
The main hypothesis of
this project is that the physical constituents of built environments, such as
characteristics of land use and site selection of various urban services,
density of the built environment, the morphological and topological
characteristics of street networks, spatial distribution of urban resources and
services have significant impact on physical activity and social interaction
levels of their inhabitants, body mass indices, mental health and wellbeing.
The main goals of this project are to identify the internal relations within
and across built environments through analyzing the physical attributes of
built environments, street network morphometrics and land use characteristics,
population density, socio-economic characteristics of inhabitants, and various
health indicators at different geographical scales (such as physical activity,
obesity and non-communicable chronic diseases (cardiovascular diseases,
hypertension, diabetes, depression), and to generate an evidence-based study
within the framework of community participatory model and with an urban vision
of high quality and satisfacting, healthy environments.
In order to reach the
principles of sustainable urban development and active cities, aside from the
physical characteristics and facility attributes, the new built environment
should be socially and physically integrated. This would generate high physical
quality, socially and economically beneficial built environments, where people
can easily access these environments, both individual and communal interests
are important, and sense of belonging is significantly high. For these reasons,
urban planning policies, plans and strategies at various geographical levels
should be evaluated along with comprehensive analyses of past trends and
present urban attributes. These analyses at various geographical levels will be
assessed in relation to street network morphology and its connectivity,
betweenness, closeness characteristics.
In Turkey, the number of
studies that have examined the physical activity levels across urban built
environments except for rural/urban division is limited. In our project, various
indicators of urban life and quality of life will be examined at various
geographical levels (regional, provincial, and neighborhood level (for Ankara))
and the subjective evaluation of individuals in selected neighborhoods will
also be inquired. With these qualifications, our study will set an example for
future studies. These various geographical level analyses will be interrelated
using spatial statistical analyses (stratification, clustering etc).
The theoretical approach
used in this study is relational and multi-dimensional. Quality of life scales
and the relations across selected variables will be analyzed using various
spatial statistical methods and these analyses will be linked to the behavioral
patterns of individuals. The results of these analyses will be helpful both at
broader scale with regional and urban health policies and at smaller scale
where urban infrastructure strategies and spatial design principles can be
specified.
The project covers 1
main project and 3 sub-projects complying with the 3 basic dimensions and 3
basic frameworks of the project call. All analyses at various geographical
scales include the objective/material attributes of built environments, and
analyze past trends, current conditions along with future expectations. In
particular, the first subproject of the main project covers the analyses of the
relationships within the built environment. The first subproject offers an
overall analysis of indicators related to the characteristics of the built
environments across regions and provinces in Turkey. The main project covers
Ankara’s metropolitan area, and, in this project, the intra-city relations will
be analyzed. The second subproject offers a subjective evaluation of quality of
life in built environments along with the proposal of a community participatory
model. In coordination with all three project packages, the goal of the fourth
subproject will be to focus on proposition of implementation and monitoring of
urban public policies aiming to create physically active, high-quality built
environments. The dissemination impact of this subproject across local
governments will be enhanced with the participation of Ministry of Health of
Turkey, General Directorate of Public Health, Department of Healthy Diet and
Physical Activity.