Abstract
İstanbul, a city with over 14 million people, is invaded by its own inhabitants every day. With the maps in their minds that have the borders drawn by themselves, millions of vehicles, pedestrians, street animals are reaching from one point to another. During these changes, sometimes city fails to protect its original shape, yet sometimes manages to remain the patterns. Transformation of space is based on the economic and political backgrounds of the country and a new real-estate centered culture is forcibly applied. The isolating approach of politics is leaving traces on urban land. İstanbul, being a palimpsest city and a living organism, has been going through the most active phase of its history. But at the same time, lack of interest in urban esthetics and architecture has led many new problems. Individuals can only adopt and accept their social and physical environments as long as they're able to give a meaning to it. But the extremist operations reflect on the memory as ruptures, and this causes an unclear future perception and lack of sense of belonging. Tahtakale District which has going through social and physical changing phases is selected to be the case study area. Incidents of near past will be examined in a safety and gender perspective. For the inhabitants, urban land has become the crime scene for harassment; one of the main goals is to study how the change of mental maps will affect the future assumptions and individuals' behaviors as well as their sense of belonging.
