**5.1 Immigrant housing around the historic city center**

The first settlement area of Bursa was established inside the historic city castle and then outspread to the areas around the castle, as it was mentioned in section 4.1. The concept of "külliye" which means a living complex including a "han", which is composed of a number of small accomodation units for people and their animals that were used for transportation, a "medrese" which means school, a "hamam" which means public bath, an "aşevi" which means soup kitchen and a mosque is the main characteristic of Ottoman urbanization strategy. As being the first capital city of the Ottoman Empire, Bursa still has many of these living complexes named as "külliye" and traditional neighbourhoods around them. Today the most conserved parts of the city are the neighbourhoods inside the historic city walls and the neighbourhoods around four important "külliyes". However, as a consequence of the urbanization process most of these neighbourhoods has lost their original residents and now they're hosting the low and middle income immigrants who came from the other regions of Turkey. Evenmore, new immigrant houses constructed illegally by the migrants began to mushroom around these traditional neighbourhoods. Especially in the south of the city, there are many immigrant neighbourhoods between historic city walls and the Mount Uludağ (Fig.15). In these neighbourhoods where the topography is made up of steep slopes, houses are mostly put over each other resembling a slow climb up to the Mount Uludağ (Fig. 16).

Fig. 15. A house between the historic city walls (A.I.Çahantimur archive)

The Impact of Different Urban Housing Patterns on the

**5.2 Immigrant housing in the periphery of the city** 

Sustainable Urban Development of a Historic City, Bursa/Turkey 197

Social housing blocks planned as alternatives of squatter settlements are located in the

They are funded by the state and constructed with the collaboration of local governments and private sector companies. Although it is easy to observe the rapid land-use changes to urban sprawl and the agricultural land loss in Bursa, detailed and up-to-date information is not available from official sources. However, it is a known fact that a widespread expansion of peripheral development is still going on, along the east-west axis of linear macroform of the city. The vast and widespread expansion of peripheral development not only takes up valuable land and increases transportation problems, but also has adverse effects on the historic identity of the city together with psychological, social and cultural needs of people. Whatever drives its development the periphery usually suffers from inadequate investment in the infrastructure necessary to integrate it into the city. When analysed in terms of physical requirements of sustainable urban development, the effects of immigrant housing

 Quality of life: The elements of built environment in the periphery are immigrant houses, either one- or two-storey houses with poor construction materials and systems, or multi-storey social housing blocks. The first one -gecekondu- has deficiency in terms of physical conditions because of insufficient financial resources and inadequate infrastructure. The second one -social housing blocks- have better physical conditions indoors than gecekondus, but outdoor conditions are not better than gecekondus'. Social housing areas as well as squatter settlements threaten the fertile plain and agricultural activities. Accessibility and safety of these settlements differ from each other according to their location in the city and socio-cultural structure of their immigrant population. There is no vitality and diversity in these environments, because the houses or blocks they contain are all the same kind and are standing side by side

 Optimum Density: The immigrant settlements in the periphery of the city mostly have a high density of people and buildings, because of multi-storey social housing blocks and apartment-like gecekondus. However, the number of other kinds of buildings is not big

periphery of Bursa, usually in the proximity of squatter settlements (fig.17)

Fig. 17. Examples from social housing blocks (A.I.Çahantimur archive)

in the periphery of the city can be summarized as follows:

enough to say that there is a high density of functions.

along narrow roads.

Fig. 16. Houses on the lower slopes of Uludağ (A.I.Çahantimur archive)

These immigrant settlements in and around the historic city threaten sustainable urban development of the city in terms of both physical and socio-cultural dimensions. When analysed in terms of physical requirements of sustainable urban development which were defined as quality of life, optimum density and minimum use of energy and resources, the effects of immigrant housing around the historic city center can be summarized as follows;

