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More inclusive than before?: The tale of a historic urban park in Ankara, Turkey

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Abstract

In the prevailing literature on contemporary public spaces, two contested sets of arguments become apparent: one depicts the ‘end of public space’, while the other challenges with this ‘end of public space’ discourse. Following the debates, one can ask the question of whether there has been any ideally ‘public’ or ‘inclusive’ public space ever in cities, or the inclusivity (thereby ‘publicness’) of public spaces can or may change in time based on a variety of factors. This research, addressing these questions, contributes to this ongoing discussion, first by providing a model of inclusivity for the qualitative assessment of public spaces, and second by using this model to provide an empirical analysis on the largest urban park in the historic city centre of Ankara, namely Gençlik Park (GP). After in-depth analysis of the changing inclusivity of GP from its heydays to nowadays regarding four dimensions of ‘access’, in relation with its design, management, control and use processes, as well as the contextual aspect of the inclusivity–exclusivity continuum of public–private spaces, it concludes that the ‘inclusive’ nature of public spaces might change and evolve depending on time dimension, as well as the local and global contexts within which the public space is set and bounded. Although the causes and issues regarding the inclusivity capacity of public spaces are complex – that is, ‘multiple’, ‘site-specific’ and ‘interrelated’, the continuous presence of democratic and egalitarian procedural accessibility, which embraces all segments of the public, which gives them the opportunity to raise their voices and opinions about the public spaces, and which deliberation is used as the mechanism to endure a consensual rather than authoritarian style of interaction is a requirement for generating and maintaining inclusive public spaces.

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Notes

  1. The recent survey show that, off the respondents, 56 per cent are from low-income groups with a monthly family income less than €675, 34.6 per cent from low middle-income groups with an income between €675 and €1690, while only 5.6 per cent can be regarded as high middle-income groups with an income between €1690 and €2700 and 3.8 per cent as high-income groups with an income higher than €2700 (Memlük, 2012). Figures were calculated according to the exchange rate of Turkish Central Bank in 3 January 2014 when €1 equals to 2.96 TL.

  2. Zeki Müren (1931–1996) is a prominent Turkish singer, composer and actor.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr Yalçın Memlük and Prof. Dr Baykan Günay who kindly opened their personal archive to them, and shared their deep knowledge and experience in GP, and two anonymous referees for their constructive comments on the earlier version of this article. The authors are profoundly grateful to the following institutions/persons for granting copyright permission to use some visual documents in this article: Architekturmuseum der Technische Universitat Berlin, Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, MIMDAP Editor, Virtual Tourist member Suvanki, Ulus newspaper and Prof. Dr Yalçın Memlük.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of City and Regional Planning, Middle East Technical University, Dumlupınar Bulvarı, Ankara, 06800, Turkey

    Müge Akkar Ercan

  2. Department of City and Regional Planning, Gazi University, Ankara, 06570, Maltepe, Turkey

    Nihan Oya Memlük

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  1. Müge Akkar Ercan
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  2. Nihan Oya Memlük
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Correspondence to Müge Akkar Ercan.

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Akkar Ercan, M., Oya Memlük, N. More inclusive than before?: The tale of a historic urban park in Ankara, Turkey. Urban Des Int 20, 195–221 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/udi.2015.5

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