Deprivation Analysis in Declining Inner City Residential Areas: A Case Study From Izmir, Turkey.

The age of the building is an important variable while explaining the decline of an area. Therefore,
during the study it is tried to derive information about the ages of the buildings in the content of the research.
As mentioned before, the buildings located at the district are commonly old. According to the findings of the
research, the ages of the buildings are concentrated within the interval of 20-60 years. The highest proportion
here belongs to the “unknown” category. There are two reasons to explain this situation. Firstly, the
buildings are so much old that the residents do not know their ages. The other reason is that building
changed too many hands through the time. In the following rank, there is an interval of 41-60 ages (13.9 %).
Considering that the average economic life of a building is about 30 years, it can be said that the majority of
the buildings have just completed their economic lives. This also indicates another important dimension of
the declining process of the district.

The buildings in the research area of the district have a standard profile regarding to the number of
rooms they contain. 47.7 % of examined buildings have three rooms. On the other hand, regarding the floor
spaces of the buildings of the whole district, there are not enough spaces to live comfortably in these
buildings in spite of the number of room they contain. Average floor space of the total 645 dwellings is 50
m² (table 20). 70 % of the dwellings are in the interval of 25-75 square meters. Moreover, the dwellings,
which are generally one-storey buildings, have the size larger than 75m². Smallness of the houses is also one
of the most expressed problems in the study area.

One of the most important characteristics of the district that differentiated from other parts of the izmir is
the deteriorated physical environment. Due to the historical background, the district contains historically
registered buildings and has too many old buildings. Regarding to this characteristic of the district, it is
beneficial to examine the data, which is obtained from both Konak Municipalitiy and the field survey
including whole buildings of the district as presented map 4. According to the map 4, there are 483
buildings, which are old and fitting to the pattern, 125 buildings which are old but incongruous to the
pattern, 57 buildings which are new and incongruous to the pattern, 25 buildings which are historical and
registered building, and finally 2 buildings which are new and fitting to the pattern. Considering the general
physical conditions of the buildings, it can be said that the residents of the district are deprived in terms of
healthy buildings. Since the old age of the buildings, most of the household within the research population
complained the physical conditions of their home. According to the findings of the research, 55.4 percent of
the households responded that their buildings have bad physical conditions generally.

In more details, the physical problems of the dwellings are examined within the research area by
interviewing the residents. Their responds concentrates mostly on the problem of humidity of the buildings.
This is very important since the unhealthy conditions of the buildings may affect the health of the residents
negatively. Nearly all buildings located at the district are in need of repairs, although the 70.8 percent of the
residents said they had already repaired their home. Since the entirely repairs efforts require high prices, they
could do just small-scale works such as roof restoration, painting, and plastering. They repair the parts of the
buildings requiring urgent ameliorations, so that they could reduce the disadvantages of deterioration.

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