The Chaotic, Fractal and Complex City

I think that what begun my thougths about this was a proposed transport plan for Istanbul and awareness of the proposal of 'New Istanbul'. All the proposals on the table for Istanbul and the present development point toward a very unsustainable future for this city. While Istanbul is not alone as a city that is heading in the future assuming that all the conditions presently in place will remain the same, there are other cities that are least addressing concerns about becoming more sustainable. I plan to write more on this topic. However, I would very much appreciate your comments.

The following is a version of the paper that was to be presented at a recent conference. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances and funding problems, I was not able to attend and had to withdraw the paper. Any comments are appreciated. This paper will be presented at the ICGIS2008 ( http://icgis2008.fatih.edu.tr/?&language=EN ) which will be held at Faith University ın Istanbul from 2-5 July 2008. Spatial technologies as a tool for developing sustainable urban transport in middle income economies Michael A. McAdams Assistant Professor Geography Department 34500 Büyükçekmece İstanbul, Türkiye e-mail: mcadams@fatih.edu.tr Abstract Urban transport is one of the most important elements for the development of sustainable urban areas in middle income economies. In many of these countries, the amount of vehicles on highway facilities in their urban areas is often increasing at such a rapid that is overwhelming their capacity- resulting in such problems as increased air pollution,...

This title may be strange to some. The common definition of chaos is the lack of perceived order. Urban and regional planning could be defined as the rational decısion makng process leading to an improved future urban/regıonal state. Both of these are inadequate definitions, although they would be commonly accepted by those unfamiliar with the concept of chaos defıned by the scıentıfic community and the evolution of urban planning theory. Looking at the 'everyday' definitions given previously, there would appear to be no common ground to connect the two concepts. Let’s examine some samples of the definitions of the chaos theory and urban and regional planning. Chaos Theory A name given to recent wide-ranging attempts to uncover the statistical regularity hidden in processes that otherwise appear random, such as turbulence in fluids, weather patterns, predator-prey cycles, the spread of disease, and even the onset of war. Systems described as "chaotic" are extremely su...

While searching for aerial photographs of Istanbul for the Remote Sensing class that I am currently teaching, I came upon this “gem” of academic fantasy: http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2008a/080109SozenAnimation.html In this bulletin, it is stated: Istanbul is at such high risk for a devastating earthquake that engineers at Purdue University and the Republic of Turkey have come up with a bold new proposal: build a second city. A second, satellite city would provide immediate refuge to inhabitants of the old city in the event of a catastrophic earthquake and soften such an event's effects on the nation's economy. This proposed project is another excellent example that visions of urban utopias did not die with Corbusier, Wright and Howard (Hall 2002, McAdams 2006). While I am not an advocate of urban utopian movements, there are some that I find more benign than others, such as the New Urbanism movement. However, the New Urbanism movement is merely an updated version of Howard'...