Urban Landscapes and Identity
Isil Kaymaz
[1] Department of Landscape Architecture, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey
1. Introduction
Identity has always been a popular research subject for various disciplines, such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, human geography and anthropology. However, urbanization and globalization processes, which have caused a rapid change on our environments, have brought the concept of identity on the agenda of planners and designers in the last few decades. The major concern of the identity related research is on the sustainability of place identity.
Urbanization and globalization are obviously two major phenomena that affect our social, economic, cultural lives as well as our physical environment. Despite the broad context of the issues related to these two processes, it wouldn’t be untrue to say the major global concern that has arisen from urbanization and globalization, is the sustainability of the environment. On the other hand current studies on sustainability of the urban environments mainly focus on factors like water, air, energy, and transport while urban identity is receiving attention rarely [1].
The end of the last century faced a rapid and dramatic increase in urban population worldwide, mainly because of immigration. Today more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. According to United Nation’s (UN) 2011 revision of World Urbanization Prospects, the population living in urban environments is expected to increase from 3.6 billion (2011) to 6.3 million by 2050 [2]. Therefore it seems that the urban environments will continue to grow in order to accommodate more inhabitants. Consequently, both natural and cultural landscape resources will continue to be under pressure in and around urban settlements. Besides the ecological sustainability issues, expansion of urban areas, increasing urban population and deterioration of both natural and cultural resources raise the concerns on image and identity of urban landscapes.