Abstract
Throughout history, many heuristic approaches have been used to maintain an efficient development in urban planning. One of these approaches is urban morphology. Urban morphologists and geographers have been studying urban fringe belt concept since the last half of the century; however, it is not a well-known concept in planning and design scales. Understanding the effects of different planning policies on fringe areas, their locations and functions are crucial to grasp the value they redound to the city. In this study, several concepts were evaluated by a scoring system to understand these effects; and by this method, fringe belts of Istanbul and Barcelona have been determined and compared. Urban fringe belts are the urban entities, which have been created between the building cycles at urban periphery, then embedded within the city during the urbanization process. Fringe belts are usually urban heritages and ecologic corridors which also have tourism potential and importance in terms of the traditionalism and sense of permanency. Besides, these areas are the buffer zones which protect nature and rural areas from the negative effects of the city. However, as a result of the rapid population increase and need for new development plots, especially inner fringe belt areas which locate at the city center have been seen as new development areas. This situation which is called fringe belt alienation has taken as the main problem and evaluated in this study. For a well city development, these areas should be taken into consideration as urban entities in urban planning and design processes and should have enforcement on decision makers. Protection of the fringe character can create an urban quality, an inheritance to be left in the future.
