Influence of urban geometry on public investment cost of urban technical infrastructure:a case study of sewer system in Aydın, Turkey

Abstract

The design and implementation of urban technical infrastructure investments have been largely ignored within the traditional planning processes. This process is generallyperformed, first, by producing urban development plans and only then, by developing the plan for the urban technical infrastructure. While this process runs in Turkey as described above, international practices, including those in the developed countries, does not differ all too much; However, today it is very clear that the process of developing technical plans for the infrastructure, which are subject to unique design principles and criteria and are concealed underground must be handled within the site plan developing process. For the purpose of providing sustainable urban development and efficient use of limited natural resourses, integrating infrastructure considerations into city planning process and providing interrelation between them with the aim of minimizing infrastructure costs for public sector are the main goals of the research. To achieve this goal, the study is comprised of the following sections; evaluation of current city and infrastructure planning and construction process and principles to constitute an interrelation between each other by means of comparative analysis techniques; relationship between urban macro-form and urban technical infrastructure costs with respect to urban land use decision, urban net and gross density; and critical evaluation of sustainable form of urban development .compact city form. and urban technical infrastructure relationship. Finally, as a case study, Aydın (a western mid-sized city of Turkey) development plan has been examined and compared with technical infrastructure costs by means of GIS technologies. Using this method; the new development and construction typology for cities, substantive and procedural contribution to the city planning process has been described to reduce the negative side effects of traditional development process of cities for the future. Eventually, completed comparative analysis indicate that instead of improving both planning process defectiveness, location of urban technical infrastructures in alternative spaces or distinctive urban development pattern (modified hexagonal development pattern) has significant contribution on minimizing public investment cost and achieving sustainable urban development as well.