The Relation Between Urban Technical Infrastructure and Urban Planning

Today, with more than half of the world's population living in cities, the establishment of urban infrastructure, development stages and planning processes have become the most fundamental problems of sustainable development and plans.

Since the creation of man, with the effort to leave the nomadic life and live in a certain place and the urbanization process that emerged as a production, consumption and working area for economic development, the cities that spread and develop have necessarily needed various requirements specific to each urban identity in order to make urban life sustainable. These requirements have led to the diversification and proliferation of the layers and components that make up the city, and as they diversify, they have become an equation with many unknowns. Cities with this complex structure have led to the emergence of various spatial problems and threats as a result of the increase in population which caused rapidly increasing urbanization and the unplanned exceeding of the carrying capacity of cities in settlements.

The situation as a result of these issues has led to the need to reconsider and plan the spatial organization of the city. Urban technical infrastructure systems and services, which are necessary to provide a healthy and sustainable life for human beings in cities, have emerged and have shown technological change and transformation until today based on the conditions of the time. Urban technical infrastructure services have differed according to urban development and trends. Urban technical infrastructure services have become the most important tool for directing branded project - mega city investments.

Our urban living centers have been exposed to the negative effects of environmental damages caused by the construction of infrastructure and superstructures that are not subject to a plan and project, along with the rapidly increasing population and their needs, and the environmental damages caused by the unplanned building stock due to our bad urbanization process. Today, with more than half of the world's population living in cities, the establishment of urban infrastructure, development stages and planning processes have become the most fundamental problems of sustainable development and plans. For this reason, the most fundamental problem of urban living spaces is that urban technical infrastructure services cannot adequately respond to urban needs. The reason for the insufficiency in urban technical infrastructure services stems from the miscommunication between urban planning, one of the instruments of city building, and urban infrastructure, not speaking the same language and not establishing a delicate balance.

Every living unit in the world, villages, cities, etc. have their own basic functions and duties for the ordinary continuation of life in those settlements. In order for cities to fulfill their basic functions, urban technical infrastructure services are the most important instrument needed for the establishment of a spatial organization of that city, for the design of change and transformation, for the completion of urbanization, and for the healthy survival of urban dwellers in the urbanization process or in urbanized spaces. Urban infrastructure services, in coordination with planned projects and investments, can contribute to the development strategies and plans of the city.

The planning of technical infrastructure service projects is only possible if the city is designed with a rational plan, the projection dates of the plans are determined, and the carrying capacities of the projection population to be created by the plan are designated. Basically, a city's self-sustainability and self-sufficiency will be possible through technical infrastructure projects that must be prepared in coordination with town/city plans prepared on the basis of physical infrastructure.

The current status and qualities of urban infrastructure instruments in urban living centers are the most determining factor of economic development in those urban centers and one of the most important criteria showing the level of development of countries. Urban infrastructure facilities cover a wide range of service products such as solid and liquid waste, drinking water supply, sewerage, transportation, energy, communication, internet, etc.

It can be said that there is a close relationship between urban technical infrastructure facilities and urban planning in terms of the existence of cities. While urban planning aims to ensure the development of new settlements by observing the changes in the social structure of the city's population with a humanist approach, urban technical infrastructure facilities reveal that it is the most important argument that enables the realization of this urban development.

In this context, urban infrastructure concept is a cluster that includes all scales of urban planning, social classes and branches of engineering. Today, the relationship between the urban planning process and its requirements and urban infrastructure investments is far from a holistic approach and is problematic due to the inability to speak the same jargon.

The advancement of technology, the harmony between urban planning and the design of urban infrastructure facilities and urban projects to be built with a new approach point to a new relationship between urban design and urban infrastructure facilities. This situation reveals that the relationship between urban planning and urban infrastructure facilities today needs to change form contrary to this time. The effects of global climate change and ecological footprints in the world reveal that we need to make the best and most efficient use of the sustainable and effective use of natural and renewable resources on earth. With more than half of the world's population living in cities, urban technical infrastructure facilities have become more important than ever. In this period when natural resource stocks are gradually decreasing, urban technical infrastructure facilities that will emerge and be designed through developing technology will be important in making cities sustainable with an innovative understanding.

If we consider urban technical infrastructure as a whole, it should be recognized that it consists of many different systems and each of these systems may have different impacts on sustainable urban development. First of all, almost all urban technical infrastructure facilities are based on different technological and interdisciplinary calculations. The effects of these systems on the development of cities vary with the passage of time and the development of technology. While water, electricity, sewerage and roads came to mind when urban technical infrastructure facilities were mentioned in the past, new infrastructure facilities such as natural gas, telephone, internet, etc. have been added to these facilities today. In the light of developing technologies, the effects of existing urban technical infrastructure systems on urban development should be measurable and the effects of systems that have not yet been found or designed that the city will need should be estimated and calculated so that it can be understood that the city is loyal to a sustainable plan and that the city plan is functioning in a healthy way.

The difficulties encountered in the preparation of urban technical infrastructure services, especially in living centers that are experiencing difficulties in the urbanization process, reveal the necessity of examining and planning these services in coordination with urban planning, urban economics, real estate appraisal, informatics and urban management, which are 'interdisciplinary professions', rather than being only the requirements of an 'engineering' profession. There are fundamental problems encountered in the planning and implementation phases of urban technical infrastructure services. It is not possible to overcome these problems with engineering science alone. The city is such a phenomenon that it cannot be expressed with a single point of view in its planning and the formation of urban technical infrastructure services it needs. Problems in the planning and formation of technical infrastructure services arise for different reasons such as financing, project design, planning, programming, organization and management. Therefore, in the planning and design of these services, the qualities of the investment projects to be developed based on the land use provided by the urban plan are structured and shaped depending on the dynamics of these different professions. Depending on the interrelationship network and relationship scheme between the variables of these disciplines, there is a need for the preparation of technical infrastructure services and the variables of the above-mentioned six disciplines to be handled in a framework where they are evaluated, programmed and realized in a common, coordinated and simultaneous manner.

In order for cities, which are related to urban technical infrastructure, to have a sustainable future, it is imperative to work in coordination with urban plans. The most basic argument in the calculation of urban technical infrastructure needs is the determination of building densities based on the accurate determination of the estimates of carrying capacities with many different methods together with the multiplier effect of population projections of cities for land uses in urban plans. Urban technical infrastructure services need to work with many disciplines, and with the developing technology, the relevant disciplines are expected to adapt the city technologically to these changes by predicting the new services that cities may need in the future.