URDC BECAME A PARTNER TO AN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME OF RESEARCH

The Urban Research & Development Centre (URDC / KENT-AG)'s new research project titled "Measuring the Quality of Life in Gazimağusa (Famagusta)" was accepted as a part of an International Program of Research on the Quality of Life in Cities directed by Prof. Dr. Robert W. Marans ofthe University of Michigan (U-M), USA. The proposed policy-related study is directed toward measuring the quality of life in the city and its surroundings, and determining the role played by the socio-physical environment in contributing to the health and well-being of its citizens. The socio-physical environment consists of many things including people's housing and neighborhoods, the public services available to them and patterns of formal and informal interactions among neighbours. Such QOL studies geared towards improving the life in cities have been in the agenda of the EU and affects their look.

The research will be carried out by Prof. Dr. Derya Oktay (Coordinator, Principal Researcher; Director of URDC) and Enver Kolaç (MCP, Asst.  Researcher), under the auspices of the Urban Research & Development Centre. Prof. Dr. Robert W. Marans, Prof. Dr. Ruşen Keleş, and Prof. Dr. Ahmet Rüstemli will be the advisers of the project, being experts from diverse disciplines including planning + community development studies, political sciences + environment, and social psychology. Apart from the scientific support provided by the University of Michigan, a project proposal has already been made to TUBITAK to develop within a funded research framework.

The Gazimağusa Area Study would parallel work with Istanbul (Turkey), Detroit (USA), Brisbane (Australia), Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Brabant (Netherlands), Linz-Salzburg (Austria), and nine other world cities currently being planned. This multi-city program of collaborative research will enable researchers from around the world to engage in comparative analyses, theory building, and writing. An edited book, The Quality of Life in World Cities at the Beginning of the Millennium (Ed: R. Marans) is planned for 2010 with each chapter covering a participating city. 

The intent of the Gazimağusa Area Study is two fold: 

- First, it will produce information that can inform local government officials and policy-makers as they plan for and implement programs designed to enhance the quality of life of their constituents.

- Second, it will produce indicators that will be a baseline for assessing societal changes in the city that occur throughout the 21^stcentury.  Changes in indicators can be used to determine whether governmental initiatives are working and where they need to be modified. 

The proposed study, in sum, has public policy-planning and scientific value and will contribute to the well-being of the city's citizens. 

Another highly important dimension of the Gazimağusa Area Study is that a city located in the TRNC, which is internationally unrecognized, has been accepted in an international project comprising the world cities and institutions with its existing unlucky status. The project has the advantage of hopefully starting a lasting academic collaboration between University of Michigan and Eastern Mediterranean University.