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RISE AND FALL OF AN INDUSTRIAL CITY: THE CHANGING SENSE OF PLACE IN KARADENİZ EREĞLİ
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Karadeniz Ereğli is a single-industry city that transformed from a coastal town to an industrial city thanks to the establishment of Ereğli Iron and Steel Company in the 1960s. Kdz. Ereğli as a single-industry city started to change in regard to economic, social, and political aspects, and in the last 60 years, the company has been the major institution to lead these transformations. Erdemir has shaped the memories and identities in the city and changed the characteristic features of the place. The rising period that started with the establishment of the company through its positive social and economic contributions changed the sense of place. However, the privatization of the company in 2006 also shifted the sense of place for the second time. The changed relationship between the company and the city led people to rethink about the values of the place. Therefore, Erdemir as the major institution in the city reproduced the sense of place through its effects on collective memory. This thesis analyzes the changing of sense of place in Kdz. Ereğli throughout this long transformation by placing special emphasis on the role of Iron and Steel factory as the major institution dominating the city.
Therefore, this study introduces two important concepts: institutional reproduction of sense of place and institutionally mediated collective memory. In order to argue these concepts, field research has been conducted in Kdz. Ereğli by using semi-structured in-depth interviews to analyze the change of sense of place by Erdemir. Moreover, these interviews provided local perceptions and reevaluations about the place from today to back to the 1960s so that expose the shifts in the sense of place
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... As a typical case of an SIT, Ereğli was transformed into an industrial city from a coastal town in the 1960s through the Central Government's decision to establish Erdemir in the city center (Demirkol, 2021). In line with the SIT concept, Erdemir has become the primary source of income within the city over the years (Demirkol, 2020;2021;2022;Akbaş, 2013;2018). The triangulation among Ereğli, Karabük, and Zonguldak after the establishment of Erdemir has formed the import-substitution industrialization model's spatial reflection (Şengül & Aytekin, 2017: 27). ...
... Erdemir amplified the local financial development through its contributions to social life, demography, and economy. All in all, it has become the dominating economic actor in the city (Demirkol, 2020). ...
... The booming economy resulted in prestigious brands penetrating the local economy, such as bank branches or luxury car dealers. The improving financial status of local people allowed them to enjoy vacations in the country's most expensive tourist destinations and children's enrollment in private schools (Demirkol, 2020). Hence, the post-Erdemir period has been marked as fueling an impact on local socioeconomic development. ...
This paper dwells on how single-industry towns (SITs) locally develop and are affected by the privatization of those dominant sectors. To do so, we attempt to discuss the potential results of local development and privatization tension in SITs. Typically, SITs are where one dominant industry becomes the leading actor in the local socioeconomic structure. As a result of the statist planning approach, the SIT policy was implemented in Türkiye by the Central Governments for years, starting with the Five-Years Industrial Development Plans in 1934 and 1938. In line with these plans, building state-owned firms (SOFs) in specific locations implies fostering local and regional socioeconomic development while accelerating national industrial progress. Nevertheless, this statist and well-planned policy to utilize SOFs for SIT formation has shifted over the years. Under the local socioeconomic influence of an SOF, Erdemir, the city of Karadeniz Ereğli, Türkiye, has been a typical case of SIT formation. The Turkish Government's policy to build the iron and steel company in the small coastal town during the 1960s stimulated the city's evolution to an industrial city and reformed its structure as an SIT. However, the heritage of the early Republic's planned statist policies that lasted more than forty years in Ereğli has shifted with the privatization of Erdemir in 2006. Whereas Erdemir's privatization contributed to the national economic growth, the city's local socioeconomic development has shrunk. This paper, utilizing a qualitative research design following a theoretical discussion through secondary data sources, asserts that SITs are locally vulnerable to Central Governments' policy shifts and especially privatization. Hence, we stress that the Governments' shifting policies regarding local areas deeply affect those local people's lives.
Over the past 40 years, the sense of place concept has been well-established across a range of applications and settings; however, most theoretical developments have “privileged the slow.” Evidence suggests that place attachments and place meanings are slow to evolve, sometimes not matching material or social reality (lag effects), and also tending to inhibit change. Here, we present some key blind spots in sense of place scholarship and then suggest how a reconsideration of sense of place as “fast” and “slow” could fill them. By this, we mean how direct and immediate perception–action processes presented in affordance theory (resulting in immediately perceived place meanings) can complement slower forms of social construction presented in sense of place scholarship. Key blind spots are that sense of place scholarship: (1) rarely accounts for sensory or immediately perceived meanings; (2) pays little attention to how place meanings are the joint product of attributes of environmental features and the attributes of the individual; and (3) assumes that the relationship between place attachment and behavior is linear and not constituted in dynamic relations among mind, culture, and environment. We show how these blind spots can begin to be addressed by reviewing key insights from affordance theory, and through the presentation of applied examples. We discuss future empirical research directions in terms of: (1) how sense of place is both perceived and socially constructed; (2) whether perceived and socially constructed dimensions of place can relate to one another when perceived meanings become unsituated; and (3) how place attachment may change over different stages of the life course based upon dynamic relationships between processes of perception–action and social construction. We conclude with insights into how processes of perception–action and social construction could be included in the design and management of urban landscapes.
This article details the development and testing of a scale used to measure the existence and strength of sense of place among Michigan's residents. Sense of place is a concept that refers to the manner in which individuals relate or feel about the places in which they live. By definition place includes the home, neighborhoods, communities, or even an area as large as the state of Michigan. Subscales addressing sense of place constructs (place attachment, place identity, place dependence) were incorporated into the final instrument. Data, provided by registered voters, were collected on a statewide basis. Results show that 80.1% of the respondents possessed a sense of place regarding the state and 87.7% included Michigan in their self identity. Testing of the scale employing Cronbach's alpha (α = .87) revealed the instrument to be a reliable tool useful for measuring the attitude.