Innovative Life in the Urban Forest as an Urban Landscape Area, In the Context of the Continuity of Cultural Heritage

Abstract

Rapidly decreasing rural population and migration to cities bring along many problems. This situation causes extreme poverty to concentrate in urban areas and create unhealthy environments. Rural landscape as a cultural and natural heritage site; can be seen as living and dynamic systems that include technical, scientific, and practical knowledge about human-nature relations, contribute to the continuation of bio-cultural diversity, and include cultural, spiritual, and natural characteristics of an environment. It is necessary to consider the natural, socio-cultural, and physical environment relations with a content that makes sense with an integrated understanding, considering the traditions, including beliefs, rituals, collective behaviors, crafts. Koramaz Valley, which has low-density semi-urban settlement features and is located on the periphery of Kayseri (Turkey) city center, presents unique examples of the mutual interaction of human and nature, and is also on the Tentative List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, has been selected to be examined in this sense. The potential arising from the coexistence of the cultural and natural landscape in the settled areas in rural areas, as in the example of the Koramaz Valley, creates an opportunity for the sustainable protection of these areas. In urban settlements with high building density, the hard surfaces that make up the built environment, both cover the natural environment and have negative effects against climate change due to the amount of carbon emissions in their production process. It is important to develop urban settlements in low-density rural areas as well as to systematically increase the ratio of natural surfaces in existing urban settlements within the city. The planned realization of housing settlements in rural settlements with low urbanization and high rural density also provides an important opportunity for new urban settlement forms to be developed against climate change. To realize the urban development that can be controlled with this perspective, which can be described as "Innovative Life in the Urban Forest", cultural landscape areas, where natural and cultural heritage come together, can be put forward as areas of opportunity due to their spatial and socio-cultural potential. To reduce the effects of climate change, addressing low-density rural settlements with a new settlement model with a cultural landscape perspective can be put forward as an alternative settlement form against the dense urban settlement approach consisting of hard surfaces that increase the negative effects of climate change.