**5.7 The deterioration of urban open space system**

These projects, which take place on the urban green system, harm the integrity of the system after the transformation in the area (**Figure 5**). These areas, which mostly serve the integrity of gardens and parks and open, semi-open green space, make the system inadequate with new typology.

Another aspect of these constructed spaces is the way, in which the open spaces are used within these projects. Increasingly, the shopping malls and the other facilities are constructed with the functional open spaces around the buildings. Some of these are in the form of parks landscaped with exotic plants and benches, some others are designed as small plazas with marble pavements. In the beginning, these open spaces were just a part of the architecture of the projects. However, in the course of time, they turned into extensions of shopping malls and recreational facilities. Increasingly, the previously mentioned claim of providing a desirable public space to the residents and customers of the projects has evolved into a new form through the "public events" organized by the managements of these newly constructed projects.

**31**

*Project-Based Urban Renewal and Transformation of Urban Landscape in Turkey*

These places they use are safe, monitored, clean and convenient in order to meet their demands, as well as free from the unwanted urban crowds. The major similarity between these projects is their claim to bring the public and private realms together. The perceptions of urban residents about the "publicness" of the urban space also have an important part in the formation of these projects. The ways in which the urban middle classes think about different parts of the city elevates the demand for the lifestyle offered by such projects and thereby encourage the invest-

The urban landscape is a complex structure which is a result of the interaction between human and his environment. It also involves a social dimension, a cultural dimension, and an economic dimension. Therefore, they inherit communities' values, beliefs, and symbolic meanings occurring and changing in the course of the time. They change as the communities change, the lifestyles change, and the global economy changes. The urban renewal or revitalization is related with not only the old or the other buildings and the environment or rent but also with the collective memory, symbolic meanings embedded to buildings and structures, and the values

In Turkish metropolitan cities, similarly to Kayseri city, the most significant renewal projects of the past decade have been increasingly in the form of "project based" in terms of their size and cost. Urban renewal projects' main aims are to improve the social mix, to improve the environment, as well as the quality of life of inhabitants and city dwellers, to promote rehabilitation of complex urban structures, to preserve the valuable and unique fabric of the selected areas, to control-reverse the deterioration of specific urban zones (i.e. residential, commercial, etc.), to restructure economic activities located in the urban fabric, to sustain urban landscape. These are a very important issue in terms of the renewal process. Social goals may be the main focus in the context of a national policy for combining urban social fabric and larger social structure. Although sustainable development goals such as improved living conditions, existing structural equipment and risk

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84391*

**5.8 Privatization of public open spaces**

*Kayseri urban green areas [45] and urban renewal areas map.*

**6. Conclusion**

**Figure 5.**

ment to the construction of privatized public spaces.

attached to the space for centuries by the people living in the area.

*Project-Based Urban Renewal and Transformation of Urban Landscape in Turkey DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84391*

**Figure 5.** *Kayseri urban green areas [45] and urban renewal areas map.*
