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Description
During the transformation and reconstruction of cities, the politics of sustainability has been adopted. Because of the focus on environmental and economic components of sustainability during urban interventions, problems of social inequalities, insufficiency, insecurity, social exclusion, and lack of social unity have been raised. Since the primary purpose of urban interventions is to improve the spatial structure, enhancing and maintaining social structure is essential in ensuring spatial sustainability. From this point of view, this paper focuses on measuring and assessing social sustainability before and after urban interventions. This paper presents a model that defines the key issues/criteria of social sustainability, the objectives and sub-objectives for achieving social sustainability, and the indicators to measure and evaluate them.
The universal model is based on a holistic approach that can be applied to all urban areas and scales. The model identifies 10 criteria for measuring social sustainability: demography and employment, accessibility, education and skills, health, sheltering, security, belonging, participation, social capital and social cohesion, urban life quality, satisfaction, and adequacy of services. In the scope of these criteria, 12 targets, 24 sub-targets, 45 indicators to evaluate their feasibility, and 72 indicator definitions are determined. Ankara Dikmen Valley has been selected as a case study for implementing the model. Dikmen Valley Housing and Environmental Development Project is the first multi-purpose urban development project; in other words, it is an urban regeneration project for slum areas and squatter settlements in Turkey. Dikmen Valley was chosen as the implementation area as it has been inhabited for more than 5 years. The project aims to improve living conditions there, emphasizing the participation of the right stakeholders and other stakeholders during the preparation and planning phases. In implementing the model for measuring and evaluating social sustainability in Dikmen Valley, all quantitative and qualitative data were obtained through spatial analyses and face-to-face interviews. These data were added as research findings to the dashboards defined for all criteria with the model proposal. The overall averages of the targets and sub-targets determined for each criterion were calculated, and the level of achievement of the targets and sub-targets was determined.
Although one of the main objectives and principles of the Dikmen Valley Housing and Environmental Development Project is "to eliminate the physical, social and cultural differences that prevent the integrity of the area by ensuring integration between segments", and the fact that the former rightful squatters in Dikmen Valley did not live in the valley after the implementation of the project, moved to other districts, and those who tried to live in the valley were exposed to many problems shows that the primary goal of the project could not be reached and failed.
| Keywords | social sustainability, criteria and indicators of social sustainability, Dikmen Valley |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
