The significance of neighborhood in Istanbul

The neighborhood is prominent in contemporary urban studies. One reason for choosing neighborhood as a unit of action is that the neighborhood provides an efficient scale within which to measure any change in target population's circumstances. Neighborhood here is defined as the bundle of spatially based attributes associated with clusters of residences. This bundle of attributes is multidimensional consisting of everything from topography and structures and demography to social interactions. For most people, residence and the context in which it exists, that is to say neighborhood, is the largest consumption item of a lifetime. How much an individual's needs and aspirations are met by his neighborhood is a concern for researchers and planners. This study expresses a belief in the value of the concept of place as part of the neighborhood question. There are now many established ways of looking at the neighborhood, as place, as network, as image, as property and as administrative unit. These all have something to offer individually and deserve continuing attention to help counteract some of the deficiencies of our contemporary society. In this study respondents from two districts of Istanbul are asked for their subjective assessments of a set of domains associated with neighborhood satisfaction. The neighborhoods are chosen to be one traditional and one modern context. The results indicate significant differences among the residents of traditional and modern neighborhoods.