Abstract

Serpil Onder, Ahmet T. Polat, and Sebahat Korucu

Urban green spaces have social, planning, economic and ecological functions. To benefit functions of green spaces, it is important to make sufficient provision of quality and quantity green space within urban areas. In this study, the adequacy of the active green spaces in Selçuklu district were investigated in terms of spatial quantity and access by walking in urban development plans and existing applications using GIS. The results displayed that existing active urban green spaces covered 57 632 75 m2 area, and the per capita ratio is 12.53 m 2 according to actual urban population. The size of the active green spaces except city parks is below in force standards. 66% of the total district area is not within ideal distance walk to the city parks, 71% to neighbourhood park, 55% to the children playgrounds, and 43% to the sports areas alike. In development plans it has been stated that green spaces are in multipartite and are not defined according to a plan. 21 569 790 m2 urban area was planned as active green spaces, and 38.38 m2 per capita was anticipated according to population projection. However, 36.34 % of urban park and 9.68% of other active green spaces was applied until 2010. These results showed that existing active green spaces do not make a sufficient contribution to urban life due to their small areas and disproportionate distributions across the urban. At the end of our research suggestions have been made in terms of planning and designing to have positive contributions to the life of urban dwellers.