Comparative Analysis of Perceptional Difference in Cultural Ecosystem Services of Urban Green Spaces: A Case Study in Gezi Park Istanbul, Turkey

摘要

Throughout history, urban green space has been considered as an essential part of cities. Green spaces have continuously reflected the complexities of cities’ cultural and social contexts. Moreover, green spaces have been considered as indicators of both quality of life and urban sustainability. Social diversity will have a major impact on the development of cities in the future; it is significant to incorporate the impact of demographic shifts and biodiversity into urban green spaces planning. From this perspective, it is clear that urban green spaces also provide multiple ecosystem service benefits to diverse social groups. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the diverse inhabitant perceptions of cultural ecosystem services provided by the urban park in the city of Istanbul, based on on-site observation and questionnaire techniques. The research methodology aims to decode the features of urban public space, focusing on people’s activities and various forms of use-from passive to active engagement to understand the activity-physical pattern relationships in a selected urban public space. Based on questionnaire distribution, as an analysis tool, it has focused on non-monetary statements on the perceived importance of a wide scale of cultural ecosystem services and used the chi-square method for cluster sampling. Results show that both groups (native and foreign) viewed cultural diversity as the most important cultural ecosystem service, and it shows that cultural ecosystem services can be perceived through bundles and that those bundles have a positive influence on each other. The perceived importance of cultural ecosystem services by social factors was influenced by social factors; (1) native sample groups perceived recreational value ahead of aesthetical value and (2) foreign sample groups perceived aesthetic as more important than recreation. These different perceptions should be used through urban development strategies to create a sustainable city planning in the face of social and environmental changes.