DISTRIBUTION OF SPATIAL ACCESS: THE CASE OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY STAFF

Date

2025-7

Author

Çarıklı, Tuğba Yaren

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This thesis analyses the distribution of spatial access by public authorities governing the mobility of citizens, the responses of individuals to this distribution, and its unequal impacts. The focus of the thesis is on METU campus accessibility for its staff, because in addition to the decisions taken previously, the university administration’s decision to withdraw from staff shuttle provision after the national austerity measures has significantly affected the staff’s accessibility. This thesis argues that unequal distribution of access by the public authorities produces mental costs as well as material costs for the staff. To analyse the impacts, this study employs the distribution of access as an analytical departure point leading to accessibility, which is a matter of degree, showing inequalities stemming from distribution. To be able to measure accessibility, proximity, and mobility are used. Although proximity is inevitably uneven in space, mobility can change the conditions shaped by proximity. So, here the staff are mobile agents who need to sustain their access to their workplace. Their conditions are shaped by the framing decisions of authorities, while the staff make operational decisions. All public policies have distributive outcomes, creating costs and benefits; these are results of restricted or privileged access to goods, services, and places. In this study, this distribution and its outcomes are revealed through qualitative interpretation of 25 interviews conducted with METU staff on their accessibility and mobility.

Subject Keywords

distribution of access, accessibility, mobility, mobile agent

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/115184

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis