Historic City Center Urban Regeneration: Case of Malaga and Kemeraltı, Izmir

Abstract

In Turkey, cities grew very fast after 1950's because of the job opportunities and industrial development, which caused a high migration from the rural areas to the cities. Due to the rapid city development, infrastructure, green space and urban facilities could not catch up with the process and resulted in unplanned, inadequate cities. Another result of this is the challenges the historic city centers in a social, environmental and economical way, urbanization damages their characteristic urban identity besides the physical deterioration and economic decay of such centers. Since historic city centers inhabit an important amount of cultural and historical identity, they should be handled very delicately in urban regeneration projects. In order to achieve a sustainable project, such public spaces in historic city centers should be given new functions and the quality should be improved for the citizens to embrace the project and to strengthen the urban identity of the city. This study investigates the urban regeneration project of Malaga, Spain historic city center and further discusses the similarities with Kemeraltı historic center in İzmir and tries to make suggestions for Kemeraltı. The strong releationship between urban regeneration and historic conservation is identified and the importance of citizens’ participation along with the local authorities’ approach is emphasized.