Post-earthquake permanent housing implementations and the communities affected: a study on rural eastern Turkey

Post-disaster permanent housing projects have been the focus of academic studies for the last few decades. They generally point the difficulties and challenges in such implementations based on single-case studies. Turkey is one of the most earthquake-prone countries; and for each experience, it has put more effort into developing better post-earthquake permanent housing implementations for its rural areas. Therefore, there is a need to assess and evaluate more systematically the approaches and improvements in its reconstruction process over the years. To do this, with a multiple-case study design, both historical and current housing implementations in rural eastern Turkey are examined based on ‘secondary resources’ research and ‘direct’ field surveys. Three cases (Erzincan, Erzurum and Van) examined in the article are given in chronological order, to highlight the long-term, mid-term and short-term effects of the implementations.