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A DISCUSSION ON THE ANALYSIS STAGE OF 
STRATEGIC CONSERVATION PLANNING 
S. Onal Hoskara 3, *, N. Doratli a 
a EMU, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture, Gazimagusa, via Mersin 10 Turkey, North Cyprus - 
sebnem.onal@emu.edu.tr, naciye.doratIi@emu.edu.tr 
KEY WORDS: Conservation, cultural heritage, historic urban quarter, analysis, identification, strategic planning, urban pattern, 
spatial features 
ABSTRACT: 
A city without old buildings is like a man without a memory. The quarters of the cities, which houses a great variety of these old 
buildings that are parts of a history, a remainder of a style and ideals of another age, are historic urban quarters. They represent or 
reflect the elements of the cities’ cultural, social, economical, political and architectural history. Similar to sites or areas of historic 
interest, historic urban quarters are also products of their epochs. The historical buildings and the historic urban tissues, the 
witnesses of the past civilizations as well as the authentic remains constitute the cultural heritage face of the historic urban quarters. 
Within the contemporary understanding of urban design, utilization of the increasing stock of historic areas, thus, historic urban 
quarters, as well as infusing new lives to the lost spaces have become the fundamental issues directly related to revitalization of 
such areas as functioning parts of the city. 
There are two main approaches in development of policies and plans for historic urban quarters: classical and strategic. Considering 
the sustainability of the identity and unique characteristics of historic urban quarters, the employment of strategic approaches for 
their revitalization seems to be a major concern. 
The main aim of this paper is to open up a discussion platform for the appropriate utilization of contemporary methods and 
techniques required in the analysis stage of strategic conservation planning for historic urban quarters. Accordingly, the paper will 
intend to discuss strategic planning approaches focusing on the analysis stage, from the information user perspective. It is hoped that, 
the discussion points raised in this paper will set up a bridge between the information users and information providers in the analysis 
stage. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Conservation and revitalization of historic urban quarters 
have become one of the main concern areas of protection of 
cultural heritage. There are two main approaches in 
development of policies and plans for historic urban 
quarters: classical and strategic. Considering the 
sustainability of the identity and unique characteristics of 
historic urban quarters, the employment of strategic 
approaches for their revitalization seems to be a major 
concern. 
Strategic planning is a disciplined effort to produce fundamental 
decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization 
(or an entity) is, what t does, and why it does it (Bryson, 1988; 
Olsen and Eadie, 1982). Strategic planning is designed to help 
leaders and decision makers - such as urban planners, 
conservationists, etc., think and act strategically. Strategic 
planning has been used extensively in the private sector to 
provide corporations and businesses with long-term vision and 
goals and short-term action plans to achieve these goals. 
Although strategy is the means used to achieve the objectives, it 
is not just any plan, however. The concept of strategy has to be 
perceived as a plan, which is the result of analyzing the 
strengths and weaknesses and determining what the 
environment has to offer (the opportunities and threats), so that 
the objectives can be achieved. (Jauch, et al., 1988, p. 12) 
Development of strategies became recently much more popular 
than ever before not only in the business world, but also in 
many other fields due to the rapidly changing environment. 
Town Planning, Urban Design, Architecture and Conservation 
Planning are no exception to this general trend. 
Gary Hamel, together with his colleague C. K. Prahaland from 
Michigan University has re-defined ‘Organizational Strategy’ 
with the motto ‘Strategy is a Revolution’. Their book 
‘Competing for the Future’ (1994), became the bible of the 
business world (Capital, 1998, p.l). Hamel’s argument about 
the importance of developing strategies focus on the questions: 
‘How can we get ready for the future?’ and ‘How can we 
compete?’ He builds up most of his discussions on the necessity 
and importance of challenge (Capital, 1998, p.6). He also 
criticize the attitude of most of the enterprises, which he 
believes to be mainly involved with Operational Issues rather 
than Strategic ones (p.7), and adds that the best operational 
practices may fail unless they have a sound basis. This sound 
* Corresponding author. This is useful to know for communication with the appropriate person in cases with more than one author.