SUSTAINABILITY OF URBAN IDENTITY: THE CASE OF TRABZON CITY

Protection approaches have been developed taking into consideration the applications of sustainable cities, ecological environments, natural resources, elements of historical and cultural heritage. However, most studies focus on ecological sustainability, and seek solutions relating to it. Sustainability of urban identity has been the least studied and described factor. In the scope of the current study, the change of Trabzon city from past to present has been investigated by evaluating sustainability of urban identity in respect to three dimensions: Physical, Human activities/behaviours and Meaning. The aim of this study is to determine whether there are differences between spatial evaluations of the experienced users who are aware of the change of urban identity and the young users who do not know this change. Interviews were conducted with 52 (over 58 years old) experienced users. With the information given by these users and researches of the expert group were determined urban open spaces (square, coastal and valley) that have undergone high, medium and low level of changes in terms of as physical, human-activities and meaning characteristics. Then, in all three locations, 80 persons belonging to different age groups were surveyed. The statistical analyses run on the surveys revealed strong relationships between sustainability of urban identity and spatial evaluations.