Accessibility of Urban Tourism in Historical Areas: Analysis of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Safranbolu

Abstract

Expansion of cities with population growth leads to the differentiation of urban texture, negatively affecting the accessibility of tourism areas in historical regions. For this reason, there is a need to develop tourism areas that enable people to experience the areas of historical heritage. Sustainable urban development, which is also the theory of the study, has become an agenda for the protection and revitalization of historical areas in order to increase accessibility to tourism. The Safranbolu Protected Area, which is one of the oldest settlements with its traditional housing texture and which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites List in Turkey, was chosen as the study area. In this study, the aim is to examine the accessibility of historical tourism centers, analyze the spatial configuration of the street texture in the city of Karabük and determine the features of the formation mechanism of the Safranbolu historical region. The research questions are based on the impact of (1) the accessibility of the street network on the formation mechanism of the urban architecture and (2) the shaping of urban tourism areas in historical cities. The space syntax method was used to examine the relationship between the building features of the Safranbolu Urban Protected Area and the formation features of the space. Within the scope of the study, the accessibility of the Safranbolu historical center was examined through the street texture that shapes the city form using data from Open Street Map. Segment and axial analyses were made based on the current street network data of the city. The key findings of the research revealed that the accessibility level of the city’s street network was practically effective in shaping the Safranbolu Urban Protected Area. It was theoretically found that the streets with a high global integration value in the city have an impact on the shaping of traditional architecture and constitute important routes for tourism in sustainable development. The findings serve as a reference for researchers in sustainable development, urban planners and local governments who will use it to test the methodology for understanding the street layout of the historical area and improving the experiential characteristics of the users.