مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Urban Toponymy in Balıkesir: Street Names

Abstract :

Streets, roads and avenues are not devoid of identity. They are memory space where past experiences and ideological attitudes are stored. These experiences and attitudes can be read by naming which is a symbolic meaning-making process. In this study, defined as urban toponymy, streets names are discussed in Balıkesir city. Holistic perspective on the subject is brought together by using two approaches common in naming literature. City plan, the City Council decisions, the neighborhood headmen are the main data source. As a result, the city of Balikesir, has a large number of Republican street. These streets refer to state’s ideological attitude to the process of becoming nation-state.Basically, there are avenues emerging non-political reasons. While city has many martyrs’ streets in the city, which are expressions of social grief, there exists only one friendship-brotherhood Street. From this point of view, the city has forgotten traces of the Balkan migrations. The presence of digital streets names in some areas of city shows that urban texture has not become stable. Many places-directional streets have emerged as a result of the interplay of large number of causes, like nature of city and land usage. There are numerous personal name used as street names in the city. However, these individuals are not representative of any political thought. Therefore, local politics in this sense cannot be said to be effective on street names.