Browsing by Author "Turk, Umut"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 29

Citation - WoS: 4
Citation - Scopus: 3
Social Mobility and Pro-Government Mobilization: The Case of July 15th Pro-Government Mobilization in Turkey
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2022) Teke-Lloyd, Fatma Armagan; Turk, Umut; Ozgur Donmez, Rasim
What are the economic determinants of pro-government mobilizations? While recent studies have contributed to our understanding of the relationship between a defined set of economic variables and political unrest - including revolts, riots, and uprisings against the status quo - there has been relatively little attempt to understand how these models might apply to demonstrations in support of the existing regime, which remain an understudied phenomenon within the literature. The coup attempt, which took place in Turkey on 15 July 2016 and was organized by a religious movement within the Turkish military, led to widespread public protests which ultimately succeeded in overcoming the threat. This case affords us a valuable opportunity to study the phenomenon of pro-government mobilization and its political and economic underpinnings. By applying the theoretical contributions of the already well-established literature on social mobility, we argue that higher earnings, economic equality and social mobility will foster a greater likelihood of mass mobilizations in support of the regime. Our study contributes to the literature theoretically by extending the scope of the existing theories on mass mobilization and empirically by examining a rare case of pro-government mobilization in Turkey by using individual and regional level datasets.
Citation - WoS: 3
Citation - Scopus: 4
A Multilevel Analysis of the Contextual Effects in Distance Education Outcomes During COVID-19
(Univ Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Centrul Studii Europene, 2021) Turk, Umut
The COVID-19 outbreak has forced countries to take extensive measures aimed at minimizing human contact. In this crisis period, distance education has played a crucial role in ensuring continuous learning. However, not all locations have had the same maturity level regarding infrastructure availability, and the city-level heterogeneity in socioeconomic structures might have impeded equal access to distance education. This paper focuses on the contextual dimension of distance education by a comparative approach between in person and distance education outcomes in Turkey. By a multilevel modelling approach, student outcomes are examined against a set of student-level and city-level determinants of academic success during the COVID-19 period compared to the same academic semester in the previous year. The findings support previous studies, discussing the long-term contextual effects on student outcomes and show that the digital divide between the rural and urban areas and income inequality are the main drivers of city-level variation in students' success during the pandemic.
Citation - WoS: 6
Citation - Scopus: 6
Villages in the City - Urban Planning for Neighbourhood Love
(Wiley, 2024) Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter; Turk, Umut; Wahlstrom, Mia
The city comprises of a wide variety of heterogeneous territorial units (e.g. districts or neighbourhoods). In many - especially larger - cities, social capital assets (like community bonds) are mirrored at the level of neighbourhoods which form the home for many sociocultural communities or distinct socio-economic classes. We postulate in this study that the big city is essentially an 'archipelago' made up of 'urban villages'. We analyse the residents' perceived attractiveness regarding their daily local neighbourhood by introducing the concept of 'village love' (or 'neighbourhood love'), inspired by the recent literature on 'city love' (comprising 'body', 'soul' and 'community' constituents of urban life). Based on an extensive and detailed multi-annual database for all neighbourhoods in Rotterdam, the present paper seeks to identify the background factors shaping 'village love' in the city, with particular attention to the citizens' subjective appreciation for and access to a great variety of (physical and immaterial) urban amenities shaping the place-based satisfaction of residents. The theoretical framing of our research resembles the basics of traditional central place theory here transmitted to the urban space in which local proximity to amenities plays a key role. A wide array of relevant amenities impacting on the place-specific well-being feelings ('village love') of residents in various neighbourhoods in the city of Rotterdam is distinguished using inter alia-rich multi-annual survey data. This approach is empirically tested and verified by means of LISA statistics and advanced spatial econometric dependence models ('urbanometrics'). The findings confirm the usefulness of a central place interpretation of 'urban village love' in the city. 'Villages in the City - Urban Planning for Neighbourhood Love': This study advocates that cities are composed of interconnected 'urban villages', each with its own social capital and community bonds. Using extensive data from Rotterdam, we investigate the factors influencing residents' perceived attractiveness and satisfaction with their local neighbourhoods. Our analysis highlights the importance of access to diverse amenities in shaping residents' sense of 'village love'. Through spatial econometric models, the study confirms the central place interpretation of 'urban village love' in the city, shaping future urban planning strategies for fostering vibrant and cohesive communities.image
Citation - WoS: 14
Citation - Scopus: 17
How Much Does Geography Contribute? Measuring Inequality of Opportunities Using a Bespoke Neighbourhood Approach
(Springer Heidelberg, 2019) Turk, Umut; Osth, John
To what extent an individual is successful in a variety of outcomes is the result of multiple factors such as (but not limited to) parental background, level of education, discrimination and business cycles. Factors like these also indicate that the success in life can be attributable to factors that both take individual-level merits into account but also to structural factors such as discrimination and contextual effects. Over the last decades, a growing interest in decomposing and categorising factors that affect the life chances of individuals has led to the formation of inequality of opportunity as a research field. This paper builds upon this growing literature, which amounts to quantify the contribution of factors that lie beyond the control of individuals to the total inequality observed in different spheres of life. Using rich Swedish longitudinal register data, we are able to follow individuals over time and their educational attainment during upbringing and later labour market outcomes. In difference from other inequality of opportunity studies, we make use of an egocentric neighbourhood approach to integrate the socio-economic composition of the parental neighbourhood in an inequality model and illustrate its contribution to the total inequality in both outcomes quantitatively. Using multilevel regression analyses, we show that the parental neighbourhood is highly influential in educational attainment and remains so for market outcomes even years after exposure.
Citation - WoS: 2
Citation - Scopus: 2
Inequality in Access to Urban Amenities
(Springernature, 2025) Michelangeli, Alessandra; Osth, John; Toger, Marina; Turk, Umut
This paper provides an overview of urban inequality in the Stockholm Metropolitan Area analyzing the spatial distribution of amenities and their accessibility. Inequality in urban amenities is measured by a multidimensional index at a fine geographical scale and it can be decomposed into the sum of inequality indices computed on the marginal distributions of amenities across locations plus a residual term accounting for their joint distribution. Our research leverages a unique dataset that combines income data for approximately 90,000 geocoded individuals residing in the metropolitan area with information from the OpenStreetMap platform, enabling us to examine the distribution of both natural and urban design-related amenities. Furthermore, we integrate data from online platforms to analyze the housing market. Our findings reveal moderate levels of inequality in amenities within the Stockholm Metropolitan Area, with social segregation emerging as the primary driver of this inequality.
Citation - WoS: 1
Citation - Scopus: 1
Route Choice to Inform Navigation System Design and Accessibility Analysis for Older Pedestrians: A Scoping Review
(Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2025) Fulman, Nir; Huber, Johannes; Lloyd, Armagan Teke; Foshag, Kathrin; Grinblat, Yulia; Turk, Umut; Zipf, Alexander
Introduction: Routing systems can support older adults by helping them overcome barriers to walking, promoting independence and well-being. The paths generated by these systems also inform urban accessibility metrics, such as those used in 15-min-city planning. Yet current systems rarely reflect the preferences or constraints of older pedestrians. Empirical studies of route choice can help close this gap by revealing how people trade off different route attributes in real settings. Methods: We conducted a scoping review, following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, of empirical studies analyzing pedestrian route choice among adults. The goal was to identify findings that could inform the design of more age-inclusive routing tools. Results: Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria, eight of which focused exclusively on older adults. Despite varied contexts, three consistent themes emerged: (i) sidewalk quality and manageable gradients; (ii) aesthetic and sensory comfort, including greenery, low noise, and good lighting; and (iii) access to benches, transit, and everyday amenities. However, most studies relied on qualitative methods, limiting direct integration into routing algorithms. Conclusions: Future work should prioritize hybrid qualitative-quantitative designs, large-scale sampling of routes, and fine-grained mapping of micro-barriers. Analyses should account for age, gender, and functional ability, and consider circular leisure walks as a distinct travel pattern. These directions can enhance the usability and equity of routing systems and urban planning frameworks.
Citation - WoS: 1
Citation - Scopus: 2
Special Issue on The City 2.0 - Smart People, Places and Planning
(Elsevier, 2022) Nijkamp, Peter; Kourtit, Karima; Turk, Umut
Citation - WoS: 4
Citation - Scopus: 4
A Digital 'Smiley Analysis of the Appreciation for Tourist Amenities by Visitors to London
(Springer, 2025) Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter; Osth, John; Turk, Umut
Digital wellbeing research is on a rising edge. It is also increasingly applied in the hospitality sector to measure the satisfaction of visitors (metaphorically called here 'smileys'); understanding and enhancing visitor satisfaction are pivotal for the success of tourism destinations. This study seeks to identify critical factors influencing the visitors' appreciation for London, a city renowned for its allure, by harnessing available user data from Airbnb listings and hotels, using online reviews, with a particular view to the spatial pattern of visitors' choices in corona times. Advanced statistical techniques, including sentiment analysis, digital text analysis, multilevel analysis, and geographically weighted regression, are employed to discover geographical patterns as well as statistical correlations between land use, density, geographic location, and visitor contentment. The findings reveal that proximity to parks, accessibility to public transportation, and the presence of natural amenities exert substantial influence on visitor satisfaction in London. Especially, the proximity to a park enhances visitor satisfaction, predominantly in western London. Efficient access to public transportation in central areas of the city positively impacts visitor contentment levels as well. Furthermore, the availability of and accessibility to natural attractions in the southern and southwest areas of London appear to elevate visitor satisfaction. These novel insights empower destination managers, policymakers, and tourism stakeholders to make informed decisions, formulate targeted strategies, and enhance visitor experiences in specific London locales. The research highlights the importance of considering location-specific factors and customizing approaches to optimize the visitor appreciations for a city. By understanding the complex dynamics between land use, density, location, and visitor satisfaction, stakeholders can foster sustainable tourism growth and create a more appealing environment for visitors.
Citation - WoS: 35
Citation - Scopus: 39
AirBNB and COVID-19: Space-Time Vulnerability Effects in Six World-Cities
(Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2022) Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter; Osth, John; Turk, Umut
This study examines the COVID-19 vulnerability and subsequent market dynamics in the volatile hospitality market worldwide, by focusing in particular on individual Airbnb bookings-data for six world-cities in various continents over the period January 2020-August 2021. This research was done by: (i) looking into factual survival rates of Airbnb accommodations in the period concerned; (ii) examining place-based impacts of intracity location on the economic performance of Airbnb facilities; (iii) estimating the price responses to the pandemic by means of a hedonic price model. In our statistical analyses based on large volumes of time- and space-varying data, multilevel logistic regression models are used to trace `corona survivability footprints' and to estimate a hedonic price-elasticity-of-demand model. The results reveal hardships for the Airbnb market as a whole as well as a high volatility in prices in most cities. Our study highlights the vulnerability and `corona echoeffects' on Airbnb markets for specific accommodation segments in several large cities in the world. It adds to the tourism literature by testing the geographic distributional impacts of the corona pandemic on customers' choices regarding type and intra-urban location of Airbnb accommodations.
Citation - WoS: 5
Citation - Scopus: 5
Cyclists as Intelligent Carriers of Space-Time Environmental Information: Crowd-Sourced Sensor Data for Local Air Quality Measurement and Mobility Analysis in the Netherlands
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2023) Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter; Osth, John; Turk, Umut
In recent years, slow travel modes (walking, cycling) have gained much interest in the context of urban air quality management. This article presents the findings from a novel air quality measurement experiment in the Netherlands, by regarding cyclists as carriers and transmitters of real-world information on fine-grained air quality conditions. Using individual sensors on bicycles-connected to a GPS positioning system-online local pollution information originating from cyclists' detailed spatial mobility patterns is obtained. Such air quality surface maps and cyclists' mobility maps are then used to identify whether there are significant differences between the actual route choice and the cyclists' shortest route choice, so as to identify the implications of poor air quality conditions for their mobility choices. Thus, the article seeks to present both a detailed pollution surface map and the complex space-time mobility patterns of cyclists in a region, on the basis of online quantitative data-at any point in time and space-from bicycle users in a given locality. In addition, the article estimates their response-in terms of route choice-to detailed air-quality information through the use of a novel geoscience-inspired analysis of space-time "big data." The empirical test of our quantitative modeling approach was carried out for the Greater Utrecht area in the Netherlands. Our findings confirm that spatial concentration of air pollutants have great consequences for bike users' route choice patterns, especially in the case of non-commuting trips. We also find that cyclists make longer trips on weekends and in the evenings, especially towards parks and natural amenities.
Citation - WoS: 1
Citation - Scopus: 2
Is Artificial Intelligence a Trustworthy Route Navigation System for Smart Urban Planning
(Univ Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Centrul Studii Europene, 2024) Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter; Osth, John; Turk, Umut
In the age of smart or intelligent cities, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a spectrum of new opportunities and challenges for both the research and policy community. The present study explores the intricate interplay between AI-generated content and actual choice spectra in urban planning. It focuses on the concept of 'city intelligence' and related AI concepts, underscoring the pivotal role of AI in addressing and understanding the quality of life in contemporary urban environments. As AI continues its transformative impact on communication and information systems in the realm of urban planning, this study brings to the forefront key insights into the challenges of validating AI-based information. Given the inherently subjective nature of AIgenerated content, and its influential role in shaping user-perceived value, AI will most likely be a game changer catalyzing enhancements in the urban quality of life and inducing favorable urban developments. Additionally, the study also addresses the significance of the so-called 'Garbage-in Garbage-out' (GiGo) principle and 'Bullshitin Bullshit out' (BiBo) principle in validating AI-generated content, and seeks to enhance our understanding of the spatial information landscape in urban planning by introducing the notion of an urban X'XQ' performance production function.
Citation - WoS: 2
Citation - Scopus: 4
Using Individualised HDI Measures for Predicting Educational Performance of Young Students-A Swedish Case Study
(MDPI, 2021) Turk, Umut; Osth, John; Toger, Marina; Kourtit, Karima
HDI is a frequently used quantitative index of human potential and welfare, developed as a comprehensive measure for the cross-sectional and temporal comparison of socioeconomic performance. The HDI is a standardised quantitative estimation of welfare comprising indicators of health, knowledge and standard of living, enabling assessment over countries, regions or time periods, in case of limited data access. The index highlights critical conditions for equity and socioeconomic development outside the group of stakeholders and researchers. The HDI provides a learning potential that may be harnessed to enhance insights into the magnitude of human potential at super-local levels. In this paper we design, implement and test the validity of a super-local variant of HDI in the context of pedagogical performance of young pupils. We compare whether HDI is a good predictor for school grades among all ninth-grade students in Sweden during the year 2014. Our results show that a super-local HDI index is performing equal to or better than the one related to standard measures of human potential, while the index can be generated on individual levels using k-nearest neighbour approaches during the index creation process.
Modelling Place Attractiveness in the Era of Big and Open Data Introduction
(Wiley, 2022) Osth, John; Turk, Umut; Huang, Jie
Citation - WoS: 11
Citation - Scopus: 14
Inequality in Leisure Mobility: An Analysis of Activity Space Segregation Spectra in the Stockholm Conurbation
(Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2023) Toger, Marina; Turk, Umut; Osth, John; Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter
Leisure mobility forms an important part of people's spatial activity and mobility spectrum. This study aims to analyse the inequality dimensions of spatial mobility of individuals who seek to move to recreational and leisure destinations (often 'green' and 'blue') on designated days. The study traces - through the use of spatially dependent multilevel models - the mobility patterns of people from the greater Stockholm area, using individual pseudonymised mobile phone data and other publicly accessible data. We find significant socio-demographic inequalities in the observed residents' spatial leisure choices, where less affluent groups display especially low variation in mobility when comparing between weekdays, weekends, vacation season and work-periods.
Citation - WoS: 3
Citation - Scopus: 3
Intergenerational Income Mobility in Sweden: A Look at the Spatial Disparities Across Municipalities
(Wiley, 2022) Michelangeli, Alessandra; Osth, John; Turk, Umut
This paper provides a comprehensive overview of intergenerational income mobility in Sweden. Intergenerational income mobility is considered in both relative and absolute terms, and the analysis is carried out at the individual and municipality level. We use multilevel models to explore the correlation between upward mobility and social, economic and demographic characteristics of cities. We account for a wider set of local characteristics, such as the spatial distribution of income inequality within city and housing affordability that have not been considered by previous studies analysing social mobility in the United States or other European countries. The analyses are carried out on three subpopulations: off-spring who live in a different municipality than their parents (spatial mobile population); offspring who live in the municipality where they grew up (spatial immobile population); off-spring belonging to visible minority groups. Our results show substantial differences across municipalities, meaning that the particular combination of municipality attributes contributes to shaping the chance of status attainment among young generations. Highly mobile municipalities have more significant human capital, more residential segregation by income, more local levels of income inequality, and greater accessibility to jobs. The results indicate that dependence on parents' support and network for upward mobility is of less importance, and that spatial mobility (regardless of background) especially to larger urban areas is associated with upward mobility for the children.
Citation - WoS: 7
Citation - Scopus: 8
The Effect of Lockdown on Students' Performance: A Comparative Study Between Italy, Sweden and Turkey
(Cell Press, 2023) Casalone, Giorgia; Michelangeli, Alessandra; Osth, John; Turk, Umut
During the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak, countries adopted different strategies in order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, ranging from recommendations to limit individual movement to severe lockdown measures. Regarding higher education, university studies were shifted to digital solutions in most countries. The sudden move to online teaching affected stu-dents differently, depending on the overall mitigation strategies applied. Severe lockdown and closure measures caused a disruption of their academic and social interactions. In contrast, rec-ommendations to limit activities probably did not change students' life to a great extent. The heterogeneity of the policies adopted in three countries (Italy, Sweden and Turkey) gives us an opportunity to assess the effects of lockdown measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic on uni-versity students' performance. We employ a difference-in-differences approach by exploiting the fact that Italy and Turkey experienced national lockdowns, while Sweden never applied nation-wide mandatory restrictive policies. We use administrative data from universities in the three countries to estimate the probability to pass exams after the spread of COVID-19 pandemic (and the shift to distance education), with respect to the previous comparable period. We find that the pass rate decreased with the shift to online teaching. However, lockdown measures, especially if very restrictive as those applied in Italy, helped to compensate such negative effect. A possible explanation is that students took advantage of the huge increase in the time available for their studies, given the impossibility to carry out any activity outside the home.
Citation - WoS: 3
Citation - Scopus: 4
Hedonic Price Models, Social Media Data and AI - An Application to the AirBNB Sector in US Cities
(Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2025) Osth, John; Turk, Umut; Kourtit, Karima; Nijkamp, Peter
The Airbnb sector has experienced exponential growth over the past decade and has led to extensive research in fields such as hospitality sciences, urban geography, tourism economics, and information management. This paper contributes to quantitative research in the Airbnb sector by focusing on the integration of digital platform data at the neighborhood level. It explores innovative methodologies for analyzing urban attractiveness by combining insights from hedonic pricing models with large-scale digital data sourced through AI-based approaches. This novel framework compares user-based valuations of accommodations derived from hedonic pricing with subjective, AI-generated neighborhood descriptions, offering new perspectives on data quality and reliability in information systems. The study also critically examines the challenges of integrating AI-generated content in information science, referencing also 'Garbage-in Garbage-out' and 'Bullshit-in Bullshit-out' concepts. Employing a multi-scalar modeling approach, the research examines Airbnb pricing dynamics across several U.S. cities, starting with Manhattan (USA) as an illustrative case. A subsequent large-scale application to additional metropolitan areas utilizes a combination of hedonic price modeling, social media data, and AI-generated urban descriptions, including a Shapley decomposition analysis. This interdisciplinary integration provides actionable insights into neighborhood attractiveness and pricing mechanisms, while highlighting methodological and empirical contributions to the broader field of information management. By employing the relationship between AI-driven textual data and quantitative modeling, this research provides added value in analyzing urban information systems and their application to digital platforms.
Citation - WoS: 8
Citation - Scopus: 13
Student Performance Under Asynchronous and Synchronous Methods in Distance Education: A Quasi-Field Experiment
(Elsevier Sci Ltd, 2022) Demirtas, Burak Kagan; Turk, Umut
This study examines student performance under asynchronous and synchronous methods in a microeconomics course during COVID-19 pandemic. We conduct a quasi-field experiment in a state university in Turkey. In the experiment, students were divided into synchronous and asynchronous groups and were taught the same weekly material of microeconomics by the methods respective to their group. At the end of the week, both groups took the same multiple question test. Our results showed that asynchronous group performed significantly better than the synchronous group. While showing the comparative advantage of the asynchronous method, our study also underlines the importance of interaction between instructors and students. We discuss our findings from a socioeconomic perspective, where we argue that the flexibility that the asynchronous method offers might have compensated for the accessibility issues (internet and/or computer) during the COVID-19 outbreak. As a policy recommendation, universities can offer lectures with a recorded option to allow students to interact with the course material multiple times.
Citation - WoS: 5
Citation - Scopus: 7
Introducing a Spatially Explicit Gini Measure for Spatial Segregation
(Springer Heidelberg, 2023) Turk, Umut; Osth, John
This paper proposes an alternative measure of economic segregation by income that utilizes the Gini index as the basis of measurement. The Gini Index of Spatial Segregation (GSS) is a ratio of two Gini indices that compares the inequality between neighbourhoods to the inequality between individuals at the macro-level where neighbourhoods are nested. Unlike earlier measures of segregation found in the literature, the GSS uses individualized neighbourhoods, which can be defined as an area constituted within a radius or as a population count method around an individual geo-location, depending on the population density and proximity among individuals in the study area. The GSS can measure residential segregation by any continuous variable for both radii and k-nearest neighbours (knn with and without a decay factor) approaches to bespoke neighbourhoods. Therefore, it is sensitive to the spatial configuration of the area, easy to compute and interpret, and suitable for comparative studies of segregation over time and across different contexts. An empirical application of the index is illustrated using data from Sweden that covers the entire population for 1994, 2004, and 2014. We demonstrate how the definition and scale of the neighbourhood influence the measures of economic segregation. Overall, the GSS offers a flexible and robust framework for measuring segregation that can be used to inform policy decisions and research on inequality.
Citation - WoS: 2
Citation - Scopus: 2
Slow Motion in Corona Times: Modeling Cyclists' Spatial Choice Behavior Using Real-Time Probe Data
(Univ Minnesota, Center Transportation Studies, 2024) Kourtit, Karima; Osth, John; Nijkamp, Peter; Turk, Umut
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has provided a renewed impetus for empirical research on slow and active modes of transportation, specifically bicycling and walking. Changes in modal choice appear to be sensitive to the actual quality of the environment, the attractive land use and built environment conditions, and the ultimate destination choice. This study examines and models the influence of cyclists' health concerns during the pandemic on their spatial destination and route choices. Using a large real-time dataset on the individual daily mobility of cyclists in the province of Utrecht, the Netherlands, collected through GPS-linked sensors on bikes (VGI, or volunteered geographical information), the analysis employs spatial regression models, Shapley decomposition techniques, and spatial autocorrelation methods to unveil the backgrounds of changes in spatial behavior. The results reveal that the perceived wellbeing benefits of bicycling in green areas during the pandemic have significantly influenced cyclists' choice behavior, in particular route and destination choice.