AN APPROACH FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF SUSTAINABLE URBAN CONSERVATION: CASE STUDY FOR THE HISTORIC CITY CENTER OF KONYA

In the third millennium acknowledged as the urban millennium, the debates and studies on heritage conservation planning are focused on sustainable conservation-development strategies for the historic cities in particular. Reflections on the heritage conservation in the historic center of urban settlements, studies have evoked sustainable conservation-development strategies shaped with national and international tourism potentials depending on cultural tourism. The aim of this paper is to define conservation-development strategies for the future in a methodological setting based on strategic planning approach including both the spatio-functional setting and the institutional framework for the historic center of Konya, the city of Central Anatolia with a population of over a million people. The methodology of this paper in the context of strategic spatial planning approach is based on a process composed of four stages, in search for the possibility of sustainable urban conservation in the historic center. Firstly, a Sustainable Urban Conservation Strategy is proposed to be prepared which develops the spatio-functional framework for the conservation and improvement of local identity and heritage values. Secondly, a Sustainable Urban Conservation Matrix must be composed to include an analysis relating to the strategic spatial planning and its implementation process in the future. Thirdly, by using a SWOT analysis and Integrated Synthesis, the center must be assessed according to the spatial and the functional problematic. And finally, a Sustainable Plan Schema defining the main criteria for the conservation and development of the area in concern must be prepared in the context of priority planning and detailed urban design focus areas. The paper tries to contribute the planning debates on the historical center of Konya and also on the planning and implementation processes on historic city centers in Turkey.