Ayşe Nur Ökten

Recent discussions and empirical studies on civic engagement suggest that participatory planning efforts have to be differentiated at the local level. This paper conforms to the argument of the local context of decision for engaging and focuses on a multi-scale framework relating macro policy decisions and official practices to individual dilemmas. The emphasis is on three elements of the local context: the legacy of informality policies, ambiguities resulting from local government's planning practices, and citizens' perception of the local situation. The paper aims to show that, in an informal settlement, these local factors create a dilemma for the residents and make them reluctant to engage. The discussion in the paper is based on our research in the neighborhood Okmeydanı, in Istanbul. Our observations with quantitative and qualitative techniques showed that low levels of engagement with a redevelopment project in an informal settlement could be attributed, among other factors, to citizens' dilemma. The residents find themselves in a perplexing situation. They perceive the project as a chance to achieve improvement in their quality of life but, at the same time, as a threat to their existence due to the risks of gentrification and inequity.

Labor Market Segmentation: Call Centre Sector inTurkey Advances in information and communication technologies bring along changes in working and employment conditions.Automationed work is moved to distant areas and businesses get elaborate, far from the center and network-based. Another change similar to the disintegration of production process is also seen in services sector. While jobs to develop technologies are left to the developed regions, routine and demanding jobs are transferred to peripheries. This situation brings about a core-periphery division in structuring employment. In services sector, production services have an important role in economic development strategies. The most important factor in expansion of production services is outsourcing for increasing demand. One of the businesses that have emerged in this process is call centers. Firms, operating in various sectors, obtain call center service from outsource firms. Today, call centers are mostly located in less developed regions. While call centers first originated in developed regions, due to the increased costs in these regions, lots of firms have made their call service investments in less developed regions. Labor-intensive call centers are regarded as a solution to the unemployment in less developed regions. In order for an investment made in the region to have an active role in regional development, it is expected to decrease unemployment, to increase working capacity, to develop different sectors, to teach new technologies and to create local firms. Within this framework, call centers issue has been examined, their influences resulting from their being built in underdeveloped regions and internal dynamic of the sector have been dwelt on and the framework of the research has been identified in this respect in this thesis. This study has totally six chapters: After the introduction, in the second chapter, the framework of the research has been cited, in the third section emergence and growing of call centers and its importance for regional development together discussing at literature about call center have been discussed, in the fourth chapter, call center sector in Turkey has been examined and findings and the results have been discussed in the in the fifth chapter. Lastly, suggestions have been offered for a regional development based on call center sector and the results obtained in the sixth section.

... Betül ŞENGEZER,1 Yiğit EVREN,1 Ayşe Nur ÖKTEN,1 Senem KOZAMAN SOM1 ... Bu kavramlar, gerçek güç ilişkile-rinin mekâna yansıtılmasını kamuoyunda meşrulaştıran araç- lar haline gelmekte, fetişleşerek adeta birer uygulamacı zır-ha dönüşmektedir. ...

Suggested Citation: Ercan, Koç; Aysu, Gözdem; Ökten, Ayşe Nur; Şengezer, Betül (2011) : Tourism and its future: tourism development strategies in the context of coast, culture and agriculture-Meander Basin, 51st Congress of the European Regional Science Association: "New Challenges for European Regions and Urban Areas in a Globalised World", 30 August 3 September 2011, Barcelona, Spain, European Regional Science Association (ERSA), Louvainla-Neuve

ABSTRACT In Istanbul, public university hospitals exemplify the importance of urban social networks in the structuring of economic activity. The involvement of patients' families in care-giving on hospital premises is essential to the efficient functioning of the health service. This paper ...

... Synergisfic Planning” Case Study: The Building Process of a Primary School in the Process of Self-Organizafion after the 1999 Marmara Earthquakes Nazire DİKER,1 Ayşe Nur ÖKTEN1 ... Yerelleşmiş (localized) Yerelleşmemiş (delocalized) Beynin hafıza bölümü Dağıtılan bilgi ...

1980'lerden itibaren yaşanan ekonomik yapılanma sürecinin sonunda esnek üretim, işgücünün mekansal ayrımı gibi kav-ramlar sosyal bilim adamları tarafından tartışılmaya başlamış-tır. Ayrıca hizmetler üzerine olan ilgide artmıştır. Bu dönemde hizmet ve üretimde pekçok iş ...

Kent planlama ve coğrafya yazınındaki güçlü bir akım, kimlik mekânları sorunsalını planlamanın kapsayıcılığı bağlamında tartışmaktadır. Artan göç, iltica vb. nüfus hareketliliklerinin yanı sıra farklı kültürel kimliklerin kent mekânında görünür olma talepleri arttıkça “kimlik yerleri” planlamanın önemli bir meselesi haline gelmektedir (Healey, 1997; Sandercock, 2000; Germain ve Gagnon, 2003; Gale, 2005). Önceleri kentin çokkültürlü olmasının anlamı üstüne yürütülen tartışmaların odağı bugün, çokkültürlülük gerçeğinin gerektirdiği planlama araçlarının tartışılması noktasına kaymıştır (Ponzini, 2014; Tasan-Kok ve Ozogul, 2017). Türkiye’de ise yürürlükte olan planlama anlayışında böylesi çabalar henüz gündemde yerini alamamıştır. Bunun aksine standartlaştırılmış toplumsal eylemler için standart tekniklerle mekân organizasyonu yapılmaktadır. Ne var ki, kentteki varlıklarını tescil ettirmek isteyen etnik-dinsel kümeler planlama kurumunun karşısına bu standartların dışındaki yeni kavramla...

Stickiness and slipperiness are two extreme socio-economic and institutional conditions under which industrial clusters operate. In much of the economic geography literature, these conditions have been investigated separately. This article challenges this conventional view by developing an alternative framework that utilises some of the basic concepts and approaches of evolutionary thinking and dialectic understanding of agglomeration. With the evidence from Istanbul’s old city jewellery cluster, we argue that stickiness and slipperiness are inextricably tied together and the spatial configuration of clusters is the result of a complicated balance between these two. In Istanbul, these twin conditions are complementary and interact allowing the possibility to transform each other. In the course of cluster evolution, the interactions of the opposite trends result in the emergence of new actions, networks and contexts.

ABSTRACT The matter of “rural development” has been an important issue for approximately 20 years. International organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union, as well as many developed and developing countries are devoting increasing time and resources to the rural development issue. Studies in economics, politics and geography, on the other hand, lay out the theoretical framework in this matter. Rural poverty, migration to urban areas, pollution of water and agricultural land, problems of agricultural production, and introducing global solutions to these problems have become primary issues on the agendas of many countries. The aim of the paper is to discuss the rural development policies with built-in global solutions in a new perspective, in the context of local social structure and relations. Accordingly, the paper addresses the change in the rural development paradigm and the role of social capital in rural development.

Global pazarlarda daha iyi rekabet edebilme amacı içine sıkıştırılan özensiz ve aceleci operasyonlar kentleri ruhsuz tüketim metalarına dönüştürmektedir.  Burada sunulan çalışmada İstanbul’un tarihi merkezinin böylesi politikalara karşın varlığını, sürdürmesi için ona kimliğini veren zanaat kollarının ekonomik ve toplumsal olarak güçlendirilmesi ve mekanlarıyla birlikte korunarak canlandırılması gerektiği
savunulmaktadır. Bu bağlamda “Zanaat Eksenli Canlandırma” adıyla sunduğumuz
model, tarihsel olarak zanaat kültürü olan bir alanda gömülü bilgi ve toplumsal sermayeyi kentin  sürdürülebilirliği için değerlendirmeyi amaçlamaktadır.  Bu bölgenin gelişmesi, canlanması için önerilen stratejiler örgütlenme, mekan ve teknoloji olmak üzere üç başlık altında toplanmaktadır. Bu modeli özgün kılan beş tane ayırıcı özellik bulunmaktadır: Birincisi, zanaatin
yoğunlaştığı alan geliştirilecek bir bölge olarak ele alınmaktadır. İkincisi, kentsel alanın mekan kalitesini iyileştirme çalışmalarının öncesinde mutlaka toplum tabanlı örgütlenmeler ve ‘üçüncü sektör’ün güçlendirilmesi önerilmektedir. Üçüncüsü, bu bölgede üçüncü sektörün her projenin demokratik katılım sürecinde hayata geçirilmesinin güvence altına alan bir rol üstlenmesi beklenmektedir. Dördüncüsü, bu bölgedeki tüm kentsel projeler için üç sektörlü (kamu, özel ve STK) paydaşlık önerilmektedir. Beşincisi, bu bölge için geliştirilen projelerde “mülk sahipleri”nin yanı sıra “kiracılar”ın da hak sahibi olabilmesi öngörülmektedir. Çalışmada, Kapalıçarşı-Nuruosmaniye çevresinde yoğunlaşan kuyumculuk zanaati ele alınmıştır.

In Istanbul, public university hospitals exemplify the importance of urban social networks in the structuring of economic activity. The involvement of patients’ families in caregiving on hospital premises is essential to the efficient functioning of the health service. This paper illustrates the vital role of cultural and social factors, especially kinship relations and informal networks, in shaping the urban built environment at the local level. The paper shows how family solidarity is a precondition for the successful functioning of a major city hospital in Istanbul, and how this affects the economic character of the built environment around the hospital. The paper employs a relational approach to highlight to key processes at work.

Anabilim Dalı, İstanbul
ABSTRACT
Construction sector was an engine of last ten year’s economic
development and this sector has nurtured by rapid urban regeneration
processes. In this period, Turkeys last quarter’s popular
concepts; localization, governance and participation had put on
the shelf totally. Therefore, in the last 5 years, urban policy and
planning became the most important issues of the central government.
Construction facilities put on the agenda directly by
central government. Naturally, as Turkey’s biggest metropolitan
area İstanbul has been the focus of construction agenda. Projects
and plans leading spatial development also leads and gives
direction to fundamental rights and life styles. Decision-making
processes of such urban plans and projects also reflect the way
of using participation rights. Experiences from İstanbul, particularly
Gezi resistance, give an opportunity for critical evaluation
of the participation problematic in our planning process. Civil
resistance and disobedience that has been arising from and urban
movement has revealed that how the space has been politicized
day by day. Urban planning has gone out of controlling
mechanism of the planning system and became an intervention
tool of the authority for daily life. As an abandoned concept,
“participation in planning” constitutes the main theme of this
article.

An important environmental issue related to planning is created by the political orientation of the government in Turkey. Especially in the new millennium, the government has focused on achieving economic growth and avoiding the global economic crises as its primary targets. These priorities resulted in efficiency oriented planning policies in which the metropolitan city of Istanbul is the main field of operation because of its capacity to become a regional centre of finance in the global economy. In this respect, Istanbul is regarded to have the capacity of fuelling the economic boost because of its historic, strategic and environmental assets. The city has become a dynamic bundle of urban operations. Existing public areas such as parks, forests, seashores are subjected to land development; renewal projects transform deteriorated poor neighbourhoods into high income neighbourhoods or inner-city attractions for tourism or globally marketed business areas with high quality offices. Vacant land which is reserved as potential green space for new developments in the plan is given new functions with high densities. This paper attempts to present how local government is pursuing these ends and legitimizing its means by abusing the earthquake risks, and how planning regulations are bent in order to pave the road for foreign and domestic capital. These actions are discussed in relation to the typology of planning approaches and the question of resilience. 1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (1950-1980): SHIFTS IN URBAN POLICY The resilience of a city is its capacity to survive disturbances (Brand, 2007). Disturbances may be natural disasters, in which case it is the ability of a city to develop quick adjustment policies which serve to mitigate the present and to prevent the future hazards. Disturbances may also be of social character like violence, poverty or inequalities. If that is the case then administrative mechanisms of a resilient city develop quick diagnostic techniques and creative solutions to those problems. In this respect, organizational capacities of central and local governments play important parts. Another type of disturbance occurs due to the destructive nature of urban and regional projects. Regional policies increasing development gaps, urban projects destroying the environment, urban operations dismantling cultural heritage and disregarding differentiated identities are threats generated by dominant economic and political powers and institutional arrangements. Istanbul is a city which has had its share from several of the abovementioned disturbances like wars, occupation, riots, large fires, earthquakes. In the early years of the Republic (1923) the primary concerns of the administration were the stagnated urban economy, insufficiency of basic amenities and the declining population. A countrywide restructuring policy was introduced which included the establishment of state enterprises and supporting institutions in agriculture, manufacturing, education and health, rural and urban development. In Istanbul, the focus was on creation of public parks, renewal of public squares, reorganization of burnt out areas. The 1930s and 1940s are characterized as the decades of restructuring operations. Efforts in this respect included the reorganization or new establishment of institutions, such as the Bank of Municipalities, proclamation of new laws concerning settlements, and commissioning a master plan.