- Gated Communities: as an efficient Force in the Fragmentation Process of Istanbul    1028 kb by    Özkan, Evrim & Kozaman, Senem | evrim.ozkan@yahoo.com    Short Outline This research is focused on the location of gated communities that have a dominant role in the fragmentation process of urban space and the preference criteria of the gated community residents in Istanbul. Abstract Since after the 1980’s, Istanbul has been experiencing a new form of urbanization by the effect of three main breaking points: birth of “new elites” by the neo-liberal policies in 1980’s, “new life styles” carried out by the globalization wind since the 1990’s and the rising importance of “physically secured housing settlements” by the effect of the earthquake in 1999. Gated communities is one of the breeds of the following urbanization approach, shaped by these three key words: “new elites”, “new life styles”, “low-flat houses” and also “xenophobia” as one of the side effects of “new life styles”, which has been a dominant triggering force of the need on “socially secured housing settlements”. The private investment is involved in this new urbanization process by constructing isolated settlements- which are formed and marketed by the demands or the potential needs of the “new elites”- arised in and at the edge of the city. Having lured by the marketing strategies like “being privileged” in the concept of “new life styles” and having fired by the pseudo social security problems in the city, these new elites are segregated from the “city” socially and spatially in a programmed way, as an expected consequence of the world wide known marketing strategies. As the meaning of the “society” is weakened and dwindled by these strategies; the “enclaves” are enhanced in their fortresses which are spread out all over Istanbul metropolitan area, mostly on the “priviliged lands of Istanbul”, infracting the natural thresholds. In our research, the effects of gated communities in Ýstanbul will be discussed by the intensive and extensive techniques. The two-fold research will focus firstly on location decisions of these residential areas which will be defined and mapped by the guidance of literature and field research. Secondly, interviews will be realized by snowball method with the residents of gated communities mainly focusing on; the main reasons that determined their housing choices, their spatial usage habits in their residential area and their relation with the “city”. Keywords Istanbul, gated communities,fragmentation Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2006: Cities between Integration and Disintegration   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper