Ecological and environmental effects of urban transformation: An example in Turkey

Sur district in Diyarbakir city like all historical places in Mesopotamia is a city that has rich historical buildings. The urban transformation has become a necessity as a result of the historical process, unplanned construction, change of tools and equipment in transportation, environmental and ecological problems, and social activities. For this reason, urban transformation applications have been started in Sur. As a result of the transformation; the formerly irregular constructions and environment have become regular. Accordingly, many environmental problems have been reduced. In addition to this, due to the exchange in the originality of historical architecture, some negative have been experienced too. In this study, positive and negative perspective effects of urban transformations on public living and the environment were examined. Situations before and after their transformations were compared and evaluated. The results show that urban transformations have a positive effect majority of environmental effects.