In Depth Analysis of the Home to Work Travel Pattern in the Istanbul Metropolitan Area

This paper investigates home to work travel pattern in the Istanbul Metropolitan Area. Investigation explores commuting pattern in three steps. In the first step, the reasons for changing commuting time are explored initially in relationship to urban structure. Added explanation then considers the gender, tenure type, income, occupation and commuting type. The result related with gender is consistent with the previous studies however income is not. Occupation and commuting type appear to be strongly affected on differences on commuting time. In the second step, the home to work travel pattern is explored whether it reflects consistency with the standard urban economic theory. Results reflect that the behavioral assumption of cost minimization for the journey to work in the standard model is inadequate when explaining the relation between job and housing location. In the third step, the home to work travel pattern is investigated in local context in terms of spatial distribution of workers both on working and residential areas. While living and working at the same geographic part of the metropolitan area or the district decreases the commuting time, living and working at the different geographic part of the metropolitan area or the district significantly increases the commuting time.

Housing Submarkets in Istanbul

This study tests the hypothesis that in a segmented housing market, housing price structure is different in each segment and whole market area price structure does not reflect a realistic housing price structure effectively. Submarket existence is tested in order to average household income in neighbourhoods in the Istanbul housing market. Whether the consequential variations in prices in each segment have large effects on the overall prices of housing is emphasized by the replication of the Schnare and Struyk (1976) process. The empirical results show that as a stratifier, average household income in neighbourhoods affects housing prices in each segment and, considering the submarkets based on average household income in neighbourhoods, is an effective for the Istanbul housing market. Implicit attribute prices vary and there is a statistically significant difference in the prices of each segment. These differences have a large effect on the overall price of housing.housing submarkets, average household income in neighbourhoods, Istanbul

In Depth Analysis of the Home to Work Travel Pattern in the Istanbul Metropolitan Area

This paper investigates home to work travel pattern in the Istanbul Metropolitan Area. Investigation explores commuting pattern in three steps. In the first step, the reasons for changing commuting time are explored initially in relationship to urban structure. Added explanation then considers the gender, tenure type, income, occupation and commuting type. The result related with gender is consistent with the previous studies however income is not. Occupation and commuting type appear to be strongly affected on differences on commuting time. In the second step, the home to work travel pattern is explored whether it reflects consistency with the standard urban economic theory. Results reflect that the behavioral assumption of cost minimization for the journey to work in the standard model is inadequate when explaining the relation between job and housing location. In the third step, the home to work travel pattern is investigated in local context in terms of spatial distribution of workers both on working and residential areas. While living and working at the same geographic part of the metropolitan area or the district decreases the commuting time, living and working at the different geographic part of the metropolitan area or the district significantly increases the commuting time

What determines the relocation tendency of manufacturing firms?

Firms locate in different areas for different reasons. However, some of them tend to move a new place in order to achieve alternative goals. For instance, the manufacturing survey in 2005 reflects that 30 per cent of the manufacturing firms in the Istanbul Metropolitan Area would like to relocate. Consistently, this paper considers two research questions: the first one is which factors do increase the probability of relocation tendencies of manufacturing firms? The second one is do factors that increase or decrease the probability of relocation tendencies change according to firm size and varying manufacturing sectors? Therefore, the aim of the study is to investigate what guides relocation decisions of manufacturing firms' according to firm size and varying sectors. Investigation is done by applying conditional logit model. In the first step, the reasons for relocation tendency are explored initially in relationship to the age of the firm, tenure, total employment and total capital. Added explanation then considers the physical conditions of production site: total size of the production site, age of the building and the type of the building. The analysis is expanded by adding location effects in the third step. Location effect of input transport cost, location effect of output transport cost and location effect of labor market is analyzed to demonstrate how they increase the likelihood of a firm relocation decision. Further, environmental characteristics are added to elaborate their impact on the probability of a firm relocation decision. It is expected that consistent variables would provide a significant source of explanation in any model

Analyzing the Coastal Development Pattern of Tourism in Turkey

The coastal concentration of tourism activities has been the main characteristics of the Mediterranean Countries. However, they are working on new approaches and solutions for the problems of coastal areas since they have faced a decrease in their high shares of the world tourism market. Although Turkey, as one of the Mediterranean Countries, is endowed with a variety of tourist attractions, it still does not receive the expected revenue from the tourism industry. Since the beginning of tourism planning in Turkey, the coastal regions have taken priority for tourism investments and not only the spatial pattern but also the socio-economic life of these regions have been transformed. According to the studies of the State Planning Organization (SPO) on socio-economic development level, coastal provinces along the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, which have concentrated on tourism activities, indicate positive socio-economic development index values. In this paper, coastal-led development pattern of tourism is analyzed in Turkey based on the main indicators (tourism and economic development indicators). However, it seems that coastal tourism development pattern is similar for all the provinces, it will be examined if there are some clusters and typologies among them in terms of tourism development. After putting forward a historical perspective and descriptive frame for the coastal provinces and districts, the principal component analysis will be conducted in order to see the main components. The relationship between the trends of supply and demand side of tourism and the development level will be put forward in order to realize the significance of economic sustainability of tourism areas. Furthermore, the results will be evaluated considering tourism policy of Turkey and experiences of other Mediterranean Countries.

Housing choice structure: examples of two different-size cities from Turkey

The distribution pattern of housing in any urban area will be extremely diverse and heterogeneous. The shape of this pattern depends on intrinsic properties of the housing units themselves as well as on accessibility, environmental quality and the capacity and quality of previously constructed housing stock. How do households make their choices and distribute themselves among such diverse housing areas? The aim of this investigation is to put the factors that could define the choice structure of households by focusing on two different-size cities in Turkey: the Istanbul Metropolitan Area (IMA), where the housing choice is expected to dependent upon economic behavior of households, and Bandırma (BND), a medium-size city, where the housing market is relatively weaker and the choice structure is expected to dependent upon the limited opportunities of supply. The investigation results show that households’ socio-economic characteristics dominate the choice structure in the IMA parallel to the expectation. Housing properties have a more notable impact on the choice structure in BND that acknowledged the relative limitation of the housing market

Spatial Integration in Explaining the Accessibility to Residential Areas: Bandirma Case

In this research the topological accessibility values have been used as an alternative parameter for accessibility to examine whether any advantages to the evaluation of the socio spatial environment that are difficult to acquire with the geometrical distance measurement. The topological accessibility have been calculated via space syntax analysis which is called as ?spatial integration?. The basic principle of the space syntax methodology is based on the strict relationship between topological structure of urban environment and human behavior. In the space syntax method, the physical structure is represented as built space as a three dimensional objects such as buildings and non-built space as a base for movements in urban space. Topological structure itself affects the movement in space which is called as ?natural movement? and this relationship also affects the other sub systems such as land use, land values, etc. As the previous researches proves, topological structure and other urban systems are strongly correlated it is expected that spatial integration value should explain the spatial variations of physical environment. In this research this relationship analysed in Bandirma case in Balikesir province of Turkey. The analysis have been carried out with three factors based on spatial analyses and questionnaires of 795 households; the satisfaction from built environment, housing prices and Euclidean distances to the port, highways, city centre, seashore, schools, and industrial area. The first regression results show that there is a complex relationship between spatial structure and topological accessibility. According to the residual values, the spatial integration values through the main arterials fit better than the other areas of Bandirma. On the other hand, there are three distinct groups in the Bandirma case: The area near the main arterials, lately developed planned areas and old city structure. Comparing the last two areas show that spatial integration values in the old city structure are more meaningful in explaining the other factors than the newly developed areas. This difference may be the result of the difference between two types of spatial development reflecting the opposite perspectives which are bottom-up and top-down approaches. This research shows that the spatial integration values can be used as another variable to measure accessibility and this parameter may also help to explain the other features of spatial environment

Comparison of valuation methods that can be used measurement of the economic values of urban green areas

Kentsel yeşil alanlar mekansal yapılarına ve işlevsel özelliklerine bağlı olarak kent mekanında fiziksel ve sosyal çevre bakımından faydalar üreten fonksiyon alanlarıdır. Kamu mekanı olma niteliklerinden dolayı sağladıkları faydalar, kamu yararı adına meşrulaştırılan ve uzun dönemde içselleştirilen faydalardır. Bu nedenle, faydalarının ekonomik değerlerinin doğrudan ölçülmesi mümkün değildir. Ancak kamu mekanlarının ürettikleri faydaların ekonomik değerlerini ölçecek yöntemler bulunmaktadır. Bu makalede, ölçüm yöntemlerinden koşullu değerleme yöntemi, seyahat maliyet yöntemi ve hedonik fiyat yöntemi ortaya konmuş ve kentsel yeşil alanların ekonomik değerlerinin ölçümünde kullanılabilecek en uygun yöntem, kavramsal olarak belirlenmeye çalışılmıştır.Urban green areas have an importance in urban areas because of their producing on-site and off-site benefits that are called external benefits. However, since they are accepted as public areas, their producing external benefits are for public and have long term effects. This is why, these known external benefits? economic values cannot be measured directly. It is accepted that the level of urban environmental quality is strictly related those external benefits. Those external benefits can be reflected mainly by urban green area standarts per person. If it is examined, urban green areas indices of urban areas in Turkey, it can be seen that they are not sufficient enough both in qualitative and quantitative properties. It is accepted that the main reason for that problematic situation is their immeasurable economic values directly. They are seen as if just with their cost for public, but are not producing of any economic values. However, there are some methods that are mainly based on environmental economics in order to measure economic values of public areas. In this article, three of these methods are mentioned conceptually. These mentioned ones are respectively, contingent valuation method, travel cost method and hedonic pricing method. After determining the conceptual framework of these three different methods, it is tried to argue the most appropriate one that can be used the measurement of economic values of urban green area

Analyzing the Coastal Development Pattern of Tourism in Turkey

The coastal concentration of tourism activities has been the main characteristics of the Mediterranean Countries. However, they are working on new approaches and solutions for the problems of coastal areas since they have faced a decrease in their high shares of the world tourism market. Although Turkey, as one of the Mediterranean Countries, is endowed with a variety of tourist attractions, it still does not receive the expected revenue from the tourism industry. Since the beginning of tourism planning in Turkey, the coastal regions have taken priority for tourism investments and not only the spatial pattern but also the socio-economic life of these regions have been transformed. According to the studies of the State Planning Organization (SPO) on socio-economic development level, coastal provinces along the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas, which have concentrated on tourism activities, indicate positive socio-economic development index values. In this paper, coastal-led development pattern of tourism is analyzed in Turkey based on the main indicators (tourism and economic development indicators). However, it seems that coastal tourism development pattern is similar for all the provinces, it will be examined if there are some clusters and typologies among them in terms of tourism development. After putting forward a historical perspective and descriptive frame for the coastal provinces and districts, the principal component analysis will be conducted in order to see the main components. The relationship between the trends of supply and demand side of tourism and the development level will be put forward in order to realize the significance of economic sustainability of tourism areas. Furthermore, the results will be evaluated considering tourism policy of Turkey and experiences of other Mediterranean Countries

Explaining spatial variation in housing construction activity in Turkey

In Turkey, there has been a strong policy narrative that has emphasized the importance of construction activity as a driver of economic growth. This has given shape to a central state-led policy regime that has sought to ensure that planners and other urban policy makers develop plans and strategies that support construction activity. Against this backdrop, and a recent history of uneven spatial development, this paper seeks to understand what this policy imperative might mean for housing construction activity in different provinces. It seeks to reflect on both the relationship between the state and the market, and the interaction between state policies, economic drivers and levels of construction activity. The evidence presented in the paper suggests that uneven spatial development might be explained in different ways in different provinces. Although, in many cases, patterns of construction activity are consistent with economic fundamentals, there are important exceptions in some regions where arguably activity levels are at odds with prior expectations