Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Milli Folklor, cilt.17, sa.130, ss.84-95, 2021 (AHCI)
© 2021, Milli Folklor Dergisi. All rights reserved.Urbanization is a two-way process that affects cities as space and individuals / societies as subjects. In this process, the residential areas, commercial spaces, open and closed public spaces of the cities have changed, and the production and consumption styles, lifestyles and cultural practices of the societies have been directly affected by this change. Especially in big cities, among the places where the greatest changes have been ob-served starting from the first years of urbanization until today, there are areas named in different ways such as "historical city center", "old city center", "historical urban area" or "historical urban area". The centers, whose history can be traced back to the foundation of cities, contain many historical and cultural heritage elements; For this reason, centers are included in the status of "urban protected area". In addition, historical city centers function as a public space for the urban dwellers with their commercial, social and cultural images, as well as contain natural and cultural heritage elements and bear the traces of communities. However, the rapid, excessive and unplanned population movements caused an agglomeration in the city centers. Besides, with the construc-tion of new business areas and production and consumption spaces, these centers lost their residents and their attractiveness, together with commercial and economic functions and they became an area of collapse over time. The cultural and historical heritage elements in these centers, which were abandoned both as a living space and commercially and socially, have also been affected by the process of abandonment. However, over time, urban renewal and revitalization practices focused on these areas. Historical city centers, which are one of the main subjects of the city and cultural heritage approaches and studies due to their cultural and historical heritage, have come to the fore in urban conservation approaches primarily in terms of the protection of tangible heritage elements, but as a result of the changes in cultural heritage approaches, one-way urban conservation approaches have been replaced by a holistic view of tangible and intangible cultural heritage together. This change made it possible to handle urban renewal and regeneration practices, which are considered as one of the urban conservation methods, from multiple perspectives; it has made it necessary to consider the subject as a cultural renewal process beyond physical restoration. It can be suggested that the revitalization projects implemented in city centers have three dimensions: The dimension of safeguarding of cultural heritage, dimension of tourism and social dimension. Within the scope of this article, the social dimension will be discussed in the context of these centers' characteristics of cultural transmission and sharing and, the focus will be on the cultural dimension of revitalization. Accordingly, the concepts of urban renewal and revitalization will be explained first; in addition, the reasons and processes that bring about the revitalization of urban centers will be discussed. With reference to the inclusion of not only heritage elements but also cultural spaces in The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), the reasons for the loss of cultural spaces that have a strong function in transmission will be addressed, focusing on the consequences of this loss and the current need for these places; these reasons will also be evaluated with regard to the renewed spaces’ creation of new environments of sharing and transmission for urbanites. In line with this objective, the importance of multi-dimensional revitalization and holistic safeguarding approaches including the cultural aspect proposed by the Convention in the context of safeguarding and transmission of intangible cultural heritage will be reviewed.