The Role of Property Relations in the Evolution of Urban Space and Urban Design Approaches

Tez Türü: Bütünleşik Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mimarlık Fakültesi, Şehir Ve Bölge Planlama Bölümü, Türkiye

Tez Danışmanı: Gönül Tankut

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 1995

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Özet:

Like other commodities urban space is an outcome of production relations. Therefore it is necessary to understand the relations among the factors of production, namely capital, labour and land, and their transformation in time for different societies. However, the production relations are too general to understand the evolution and structuring of urban space. For this reason, the study of property relations has become most prominent, since historically the accumulation of wealth or recently capital, and the following labour activity on land produce space.

Property is a rights relationship between the property subjects, that is owners or possessors, and property objects, that is, things or goods. In this relationship, property subjects have the right to occupy, possess or dominate the things by using, collecting the fruits of and exhausting them. The state is the control mechanism that recognizes these rights through the power of law. In this framework urban space being an object of real property, acquires a value because it is both a product, and a medium of production.

Upon these premises, first the definitions of property were scrutinized, where it was observed that the terminologies for property and space had very significant similarities. Both were either things or relationships, absolute or relative, corporeal or incorporeal, private or non-private (public, common, communal, collective). The philosophical foundations of property moreover showed that pure epistemological considerations were not sufficient to put it into its real context, and it required an analysis of political philosophy to interrelate property and evolution of urban space. Historically the main discussion centred upon the private or non-private ownership of property objects, in which space held a very critical position.

Modern property relations emerged with capitalism as the main production relation, displaying differences originating from their roots in the precapitalist era. Therefore the organic urban space of England has much connotation with its Common Law, while the Roman Law based continental societies produced more rational urban space, and the space of the Germanic cities entailed an extension of German Idealism.

The historical evolution of urban space and urban design ideologies were reconstructed as a transforming property relation. This has contributed to a much better understanding of the forces that produce urban space. Since property emerged as an institution of the western society, the study was devoted to the analysis of urban space of the western city. As conclusive remarks it was stated that similar studies should be accomplished concerning property relations to have a clear view of the evolution of urban space in Turkey.

Keywords: Property Relations, Real Property, Ownership, Possession, Private and Non-private Property, Property and Urban Space, Urban Design Approaches.