Human Sustainable Urbanism Against Unsustainable Realities: A Holistic Model

Abstract

Sustainable urbanism is explained in many contexts through addressing natural environment and ecological sustainability as the major concern, a condition that is related with the climate change. However, it should not be underestimated that today’s realities also include unsustainable realities about social aspects, i.e. inequities between groups of people, undermined local community and social-cultural values, economies and quality of life. These issues imply a more critical state in cities of traditional societies where transformations in the urban level are still visible. This calls for sensitivity to the traditional urbanism and impact of global ideas, practices, and technologies on local social and cultural practices both at the city scale and architecture scale. In line with these, this paper aims to establish an environmentally sound and human friendly framework for ‘human sustainable urbanism’ integrating ecological and cultural sustainability. In this context, the study firstly provides a conceptual understanding of sustainable urbanism and a critical review of its philosophical and practical framework; secondly, it provides a critical assessment of contemporary approaches to sustainable urbanism; thirdly, the paper analyses the traditional Turkish (Ottoman) city which provides valuable clues for sustainable development, and discusses possible research directions that could help promote the concept of sustainability.