Abstract

Application of fractal analysis under complexity sciences to cities and regions have become a research area. This study aims to analyze the relationship between complexity patterns of regional road network with growth dynamics with respect to borders as exogenous context and then to represent the endogenous complexity of İzmir with respect to time by using fractal analysis. The analyses cover a time span from mid-20th to present time. Due to inaccessibility of older image and photos of the region, standardized maps published by public institutions are used to produce road network. In the first part of the study aiming to identify the exogenous complexity, two scales are determined as the extended and the İzmir region. Extended region is defined with respect to road system thresholds covering an area extending the administrative borders of İzmir. The frame of İzmir region is determined as the administrative provincial border and the present district borders to identify the relationship between fractal dimension values with population change with respect to time. Since complex urban and regional systems are emergent open systems, in the second part of the study endogenous complexity of the İzmir region is analyzed by sub-fractal analysis. In the second part as endogenous complexity analyses, the outcomes of the analyses are compared with vi respect to real-world changes. According to the results, complexity of the extended region presents stable periods observed in the chaos theory. For İzmir region, nonurban network presents complexity apart from settlement presence. Higher fractal dimensions could be observed in both central districts and non-urban settlements by hard and soft cluster analysis. Parallel to regional growth dynamics, change in complexity of the parts is not directly relational to complexity of the whole system. The other outcome is that relationship between population and fractal dimension is not positively correlated in each period. This outcome is observed both for extended region and for İzmir that further growth is observed with decline in fractal dimensions. Finally, the endogenous complexity could be represented by subfractal analysis since the analyses results fits to the real-world dynamics through time.

* Özdemir, S. (2021). Investigating Complexity of İzmir Region by Fractal

Analysis. Yayınlanmamış Doktora Tezi, Ankara: ODTÜ, Şehir ve Bölge Planlama.