A socio-spatial analysis of urban transformation at a neighborhood scale: The case of the relocation of Kadifekale inhabitants to TOKÄ° Uzundere in Ä°zmir

This study critically evaluates the Kadifekale urban transformation project, particularly with regard to the relocation of some Kadifekale residents from their one- or two-story houses in Kadifekale to apartment blocks on the periphery of the city. The analysis is based on a comparison between the socio-spatial experiences of migrants in Kadifekale and their recent experiences in Uzundere and the possibility of certain incompatibilities in these two experiences. The argument aims to demonstrate the changed conditions of social life and daily life practices as a result of altered spatial properties at a neighborhood scale: their use of outdoor spaces, the meanings they attributed to neighborhood space (“intimacy of place” within categories of sensual (visual and olfactory) recognition), and their sociospatial network. The argument draws both implicitly and explicitly on Henri Lefebvre's spatial triad and De Certeau's conceptualization of tactic versus strategy as the major conceptual inspirations for this study.