Production of the sidewalks : the case of Atatürk Boulevard

Date

2013

Author

Gülkök, Işıl

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This thesis is a study on the spatial and also ideological processes regarding Ankara- Ataturk Boulevard sidewalks. The main concern of this study is to discuss the pattern of determinants in the process that led to appreciation of public life, de-appreciation of public life/ appreciation of the pedestrian and finally de- appreciation of the pedestrian; and respectively production, re-production and de-construction of sidewalks, in the frame of Ataturk Boulevard case. It would be unfairness to consider the sidewalk, which is basically the space has set the walking pedestrian aside in the modern city, as the spaces solely designated for the affair of reaching one place to another. Sidewalks are not only the mean of pedestrian transportation but are the products of various social and political appropriations, intentions and processes. This study conceptualizes the pedestrianism phenomenon as the discourse of the marginalization of the human relatively to vehicles, and focuses on the actors and factors that re-produce the pedestrian concept and respectively the sidewalk space. While sidewalks are the most significant and essential spaces of socialization at modern urban; on the other hand, it became the symbol of the de-appreciation of the pedestrian and the exclusion of the human in the urban life. Since the Early Republican Period, Ataturk Boulevard and particular component that belong to pedestrians, has been transformed by multiple discourses and the regarded planning practices, as a product of history. In this respect, this study, interprets Ataturk Boulevard Sidewalks as the spatial manifestation of political intention(s) but also as an effective spatial instrument to reshape the society’s behaviors and beliefs; and aims to clarify the intentions and concepts behind the formation process of the sidewalks, unique to Turkish urbanism dynamics.

Subject Keywords

Streets., Sidewalks., Pedestrian areas., Urbanization.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12616617/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/23166

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis