Page 8 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 2

Introduction

n Five Cities, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar raises the question: “What use are
Ieffort and even lever if they do not hit the fulcrum?” Taking this quote as
a starting point, it would be absolutely right to say that the most important
element that renders a city powerful is the nation and the structures that this
nation construct based on their values. Our ancient urbanization culture was
built on this truth and our national identity is embodied in our structures and
cities. With the resilient structures with identity that they contain, our cities,
where our moral values are inscribed on stones, have played a historic role in
maintaining our experience of civilization to date.
Our cities, which have withstood time and all disasters for centuries face a
new process due to changing circumstances and various reasons. Population
increase, migrations, disasters, technological transformation, climate change,
epidemics, financial and social developments are the parameters that should
be interpreted correctly. Changing city life, these parameters show that we
need to reshape our thoughts on urbanization practices. Especially in the 21
st
century, there has been a global search for ways to overcome the threats that
we face, that touch all aspects of our lives, and even disrupts or destroys its
flow. Named by some scientists as the risk society, this new social structure has
its own dynamics. It is now imperative rather than essential to build a resilient
society as well as resilient cities in the face of natural and unnatural disasters
such as earthquakes, landslides, disasters caused by climate change, storms,
floods, fires, epidemics and drought.
We have been making a great effort to render our cities and towns resilient
both at a local and social level against the earthquakes over the last century,
the floods, forest fires, and the Covid-19 Pandemic, which caused daily life
almost to come to a halt over the last four years. For this purpose, we have
been developing holistic policies to deal with risk and crisis management
processes at every stage.

Year 1 / Issue 2 / July 2022 VII