URBAN COMPACTNESS

Since the last decade of the century the ongoingsearch for a model of sustainable urban form hasgiven way to an old new idea: compact cities. Withthe emergence of a new consciousness of urbanism aclear argument that compactness is an essentialfeature of urbanity has gained validity.The vision of compact urban form similar to thoseseen in early phases of human history may seem to bejust a nostalgic reaction to late-modern urbanism.Yet a close look at compact city models allows usto demonstrate the real performance of the concept ina spatial context like in terms of mobility.'Urban Compactness' is an attempt to cover allrelevant aspects of the compact city policy fromearly modern urbanism until today amidst theideological antagonism between centrism anddecentrism. Relating the question of compact urbanform to its historical social and politicalbackground the book offers a broad framework on theissue to be discussed in the case of the masterplanning history of Ankara the capital city of Turkey. This book is for all readers who are interested inurban policy and design in relation to the basicformational characteristic of cities: urban compactness.