UNDERSTANDING THE RELEVANT CITY CHARACTERISTICS IN PLANNING COUNTRYWIDE URBAN TRANSFORMATION IN TURKEY

This paper investigates the common characteristics of provinces prioritized for urban renewal in Turkey's disaster-mitigation context. Following the enactment of "Law on Transformation of Areas under Disaster Risk" in May 2012 central government announced that 33 provinces are prioritized through inclusion in the first phase of the transformation initiative. However, there is no official declaration on the selection criterion. This study decomposes the State's decision in planning urban renewal to identify the variables explaining the likelihood of prioritization for urban renewal. The results suggest that disaster-risk increases the likelihood of prioritization for urban renewal to a certain extent. Besides the earthquake risk, socioeconomic development level, local government finances, housing tenure composition and composition of employment are statistically significant in explaining government's prioritization decision. This provincial level analysis is an initial attempt to understand the main `objectives' of the massive urban restructuring plan and provides empirical grounds for further research on institutional constructs of this ambitious urban transformation agenda.