Urban sprawl, describing a kind of urban form, is a challenge for global cities dealing with sustainability, and Turkish metropolitan cities are also faced with this issue. Policymakers unwittingly make regulations that encourage expansion, which causes the formation of new settlements on the periphery and results in disordered urban growth. Controlled urban growth underlines the most efficient use of financial resources as much as natural resources, and ungoverned expansion increases the financial burden of local government services. Considering that expansion is related to the establishment of new settlements in the periphery, housing supply and demand indicators in sprawling areas become among the factors to be considered in order to achieve controlled urban growth. In this qualitative research, urban sprawl areas and socioeconomic and spatial factors affecting housing demand in there are discussed. Global trends reveal that policymakers should play a leading role instead of interfering to control urban growth. In this context, it is concluded that the housing dynamics in urban sprawl areas that differ from the city center and assumptions about housing demand in these areas should be taken into account in order to determine the urban growth trend and intervene more effectively on uncontrolled growth.

Several changes in urban mobility patterns have been observed in response to COVID-19 since March 2020 when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. However, whether mobility changes are entirely pandemic related has not been investigated for each urban function. This paper evaluates the potential determinants of urban mobility changes for six different urban functions during the COVID-19 pandemic via community mobility data collected by Google. Using artificial neural networks (ANN), the dynamics that affect mobility changes in the following urban functions; grocery/pharmacy, residential, parks, retail/recreation, transport stations, and workplaces, were analysed for Çankaya, one of the densest districts in the capital of Turkey. Results of the prediction model show that responses to the pandemic differed considerably by urban function. Before the new normal era, changes in urban mobility trends were strongly dependent on the pandemic as a public health threat and represented by restrictive government measures. However, impacts of the pandemic on intracity mobility decreased in the new normal era when rules were relaxed. These results are useful for developing proactive policies to ensure rapid post-pandemic recovery in urban economics and planning.

it's clear to the world that the eastern Japan earthquake was the biggest disaster the modern world had ever came to face, that's why it was of great importance that we took crucial lessons of it on every aspect possible so that we can be more ready for future disasters, no matter what is their scale, because as we know disaster are going to come, in all shapes and kinds, and a major disaster like the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake is going to be upon us every few decades, so being ready, as calculations have proofed, spending and providing for the preparedness phase, is 7 times better, safer and cheaper, than trying to solve the problems in the recovery phase, after the disaster happens, in this study we'll be doing an analysis of the event, and suggesting numerous solutions to prevent the likelihood of a similar scenario in the future.

Purpose This study aims to explore the housing demand of urban fringe residents in southwest Ankara. Two subquestions were developed: What are the respondents’ perceptions of Ankara city center and which characteristics do they prioritize for living in the urban fringe? Data were collected through a face-to-face household survey, and a hedonic regression model was developed based on responses.Design/methodology/approach Increasing housing demand, lifestyle change and faulty housing policies in Ankara have triggered urban sprawl along fringe areas, which causes several urban problems. Considering that urban sprawl is related to housing demand, it is essential to examine the structure of housing demand and the preference to live near the urban fringe.Findings According to the survey results, security, crime, noise pollution, traffic congestion and parking problems that reduce the welfare of Ankara city center encouraged expansion toward the rural–urban fringe, in addition to low-quality or traditional housing attributes. The urban core became unattractive to the respondents for being insecure, chaotic and down-market. The hedonic model showed that seven variables, all related to housing characteristics, best explain the housing demand in the area. Socioeconomic status and lifestyle were found to be associated with the desire to live on the urban fringe, also indicating the snob effect.Originality/value The authors propose taking domain-specific housing demand patterns in the spatial planning assumptions and housing policies into consideration for a well-governed urban development in Ankara. Making the city center more appealing through rehabilitation should be preferable rather than limiting demand on the urban fringe with a strict intervention in housing supply.