A sustainability assessment of quality of life in a traditional settlement pattern: The case of Kemaliye, Turkey

Abstract

Worldwide, especially in societies with higher education levels, traditional settlements are important components of cultural heritage in terms of sustainability. However, the recent wave of urbanisation that has been experienced in Turkey has placed significant pressure on traditional structures. The District of Kemaliye, which has largely preserved its traditional texture for various reasons, is a small town in the Erzincan Province of Turkey. The aim of this study is to determine the quality of life of the traditional settlement pattern of Kemaliye to contribute to its ecological, spatial and socio-cultural sustainability. A public opinion survey was carried out with the aim of identifying the public's needs and demands and its socio-cultural characteristics. The survey also aimed to determine the quality of urban life in Kemaliye. Multidimensional statistical techniques were used to identify the most important environmental, socio-cultural, infrastructural and regional factors that affected the public's views of quality of urban life in Kemaliye. Based on these findings, suggestions were formulated for the efficient use of resources in urban redevelopment efforts and to provide a basis for the new settlement plans that are projected to be carried out for the city centre of Kemaliye and its vicinity.

Information technology methods for locality preservation and inheritance of settlement cultural landscape

“…This can provide technology for multi-element quantitative comprehensive analysis in the process of settlement cultural landscape evaluation. 9–11…”

The systematic logic of the urban built environment

“…Citizen satisfaction is also the basis for the formulation of contemporary public policies and reform measures. Public participation would ensure the quality of urban services, 25 and residents’ participation at the community level should play an important role in coping with natural disasters, 26 urban regeneration 27 and sustainable development. 28 In the future, with the improvement of residents’ education level and political institution, the influence of residents’ force on the political system and the social ideology would increase.…”

Factors Underlying Life Quality in Urban Contexts: Evidence from an Industrial City (Arak, Iran)

“…QOL is defined as the interaction of human needs and the perception of their fulfillment [4][5][6]. Being an eminently subjective issue, quality of life is difficult to quantify objectively [7], and represents a specific measurement challenge for different disciplines-from psychology to medicine, from social science to environmental studies [8]. Since the 1930s, QOL has been investigated in different geographical and socioeconomic contexts [9][10][11].…”

“…QOUL in emerging economies has attracted the interest of scholars for the intimate linkage with more general phenomena such as the progressive deterioration of urban environments [7,24,51]. In these contexts, urbanization stimulates fast economic growth [61] with negative externalities that include vehicular traffic, congestion, lack in housing, resources, infrastructures, diurnal and night noise, as well as air and water pollution [53,56,57].…”