Urban Transformation, Collective Memory, and Disaster Preparedness: A Case from Turkey

Abstract

Among many other factors, disasters are one of the main elements of urban transformation processes. As in the case of Turkey, it is observed that the ongoing academic, political, and popular debates in the context of reducing the destructive effects of natural disasters in developing countries mostly revolve around a vague concept of “urban transformation.” In such countries, urban transformation is mostly understood and practiced as effort to change physical environment, especially to renew the existing building stock and legislation. Although these dimensions are undoubtedly very important, the mind sets of urban population regarding disaster awareness and precocious measures remain relatively neglected. The disaster risk reduction paradigm, which replaces the traditional disaster management approach focusing on post-disaster response, emphasizes the importance of risk analysis and prevention activities, on the one hand, and suggests focusing on increasing the capacity for disaster preparedness and on improving resilience of cities on the other hand. Therefore, the concept of disaster preparedness requires transformation of disaster-related mind sets both in urban transformation processes in general and in disaster risk reduction paradigm in particular. In the literature, there is a widespread agreement on the role of preparedness to reduce impacts of hazards and disasters and to improve resilience of societies. Disaster preparedness is supposed to be done by all segments of society, including public authorities, local communities, NGOs, individuals, and households. Several studies, however, report relatively low levels of disaster preparedness even in areas disposed to disasters. This trend raises the question of why people are so careless for preparedness. In other words, which factors determine people’s motivation to take or not to take precocious measures against disasters? In this context, previous literature discussed the role of many factors including socio-demographic characteristics, structural/geographical variables, and psychosocial factors. However the role of past disaster experiences and collective memory is poorly discussed by the previous literature with a few exceptions. By addressing to the great 1999 Marmara Earthquake and the continuing ones in and around Balıkesir city of Turkey, this chapter aims to discuss if past disaster experiences make a difference in terms of actual preparedness actions and if collective memory really matters. Thus, the main question of this research is the following: Within the 20 years since the great Marmara Earthquake experience in 1999, has the Turkish society, specifically households of Balıkesir, made any sensitivity and progress towards being more prepared for disasters? In order to explore this research question, a cross-sectional, cluster sampling, face-to-face household-based survey was conducted in Balıkesir between June and September 2018. The questions to measure households’ disaster preparedness are designed in four basic dimensions: (1) knowledge and skills dimension, (2) planning within the family, (3) physical protection measures, and (4) preparedness for supplies. The findings show that the practice and understanding of disaster preparedness at the level of households are not significantly strong among Balıkesir residents and that past experiences do not make significant difference to motivate them. The chapter ends with a suggestion of two particular factors to account for this finding. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.