Analyzing Landuse Types Affecting the Spatial Distribution of Architecture Sector in Istanbul

Abstract

From the beginning of the 21st century, the creative economy has arisen in European and American countries; besides, this new system started to shape the social, physical, economic, and cultural patterns of cities. In Turkey, encouraging the creative economy to participate in the global market became an important concern of policy-makers especially after the 1990s, and Istanbul has a specific role as the creative capital of Turkey in this competitive atmosphere. Also, the architecture sector that consists of the value-adding process of art and knowledge is one of the most developing creative industries in the world; moreover, this sector generally concentrates more in Istanbul compared to other cities of Turkey. When the spatial distribution of all creative industries in Istanbul is examined, it is clear that they densify in the central districts of Istanbul; however, they also started to expand towards the peripheral districts especially after 2009. This tendency shows itself also in the architecture sector. Therefore, the main motivation of this study is exploring the spatial distribution of the architecture sector in Istanbul. For this purpose, the research method contains two steps. Firstly, the map for the distribution of architecture sector in the city is produced through certain addresses of architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture firms by using the geocoding method. Secondly, the spatial relationship between locations of firms and determined land use types that are proximity to recreation areas, transportation routes, public establishments, and universities are analyzed through the Network Analysis in ArcGIS.