Mardin Lockdown Experience: Strategies for a more Tolerant Urban Development

Abstract

The COVID-19 crises created a drastic confrontation with our urban, and housing environments. Locked up in our houses, we realized what basics make a living environment healthy in both the physiological and psychological sense: accessibility to fresh air, sunlight, food, natural resources, and social network even in a limited sense. Thus, the necessity of living in urban environments providing for these basics has now become more apparent. The processes of city-making therefore need to be reconsidered to generate urban systems tolerant enough to sustain the basics of living under certain restrictions. In this context, this chapter examines two very different parts of the city of Mardin, Turkey, one modern and one traditional, and how they dealt with the first wave of the pandemic. A social, spatial and economic comparison of these two parts through their efficiency in dealing with the COVID-19 crises presents us with some key features to be involved in more tolerant future urban development strategies.