Date

2012

Author

Orhan, Ezgi

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Turkey has been less responsive to changes in global policies of risk reduction and resilience compared to developed countries. Turkish administrations usually concentrate on allocating resources for the compensation of survivors and recovery procedures. The post-disaster implementations focus on households and usually compel them to leave their current accommodation and move elsewhere. Whereas business enterprises mostly maintain their location and property in the disaster hit areas. Due to lack of appropriate policy and tools, businesses often remain in their facilities or make their own location choices as a part of their recovery strategy. Since physical damage in facilities is not the only determinant of business disruption, it is required to define the factors that lead to disparities in recovery among businesses. In this regard, this study explores the factors that affect recovery process of businesses in the city of Adapazarı heavily damaged in the 1999 Earthquake. The main argument of the study is that urban spatial structure of Adapazarı is fragmented due to the implemented recovery policies which isolated business recovery from household recovery. In the absence of a coherent policy in monitoring the business recovery processes, it is highly relevant to understand the strategy and decisions of the business enterprises in their own efforts of recovery. This should allow planners to asses whether such independent recovery decisions could be compatible with some overall urban spatial structure. For the purposes of research an empirical investigation was carried out surveying a sample of business enterprises in Adapazarı. According to the analysis of results of the empirical research, the most notable impact on business recovery positively associated with „finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector‟ and negatively correlated with „trade sector‟, „service sector‟, and with variables expressing states of „being financially in trouble‟, and „taking more damage‟. The variables of „educational level‟, „construction sector‟ and „extent of damage‟ are found to contribute significantly to firm mobility. In addition, variables of „having disaster experience‟ and „owner-occupation‟ are negatively correlated with business relocation. The post-disaster location choices of firms determine the new structure of the city not necessarily in conformity with spatial decisions concerning the residential recovery processes and spatial structure they manifest. The outcome of the study is that the interventions in the recovery period in the form of strict provision of new resettlement districts in Adapazarı could not contribute to the creation of a safer spatial, environmental, economic and social context due to the inadequacy of policies designed for business recovery.

Subject Keywords

City planning, Regional Planning, Industrial location, Earthquake zones, Economic assistance, Domestic, Regional economics

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12615251/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/22173

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis