CIP A 2005 XX International Symposium, 26 September - 01 October, 2005, Torino, Italy 
1096 
REVITALIZATION OF KÜTAHYA’S CBD IN TURKEY 
a B.Minez, b N.Erdogan, c V.Dökmeci 
a MINEZ, Trakya University, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, 22030 Edime, and TURKEY-berkminez@mynet.com 
b ERDOGAN, Trakya University, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, 22030 Edirne, TURKEY- nevtrakya@hotmail.com 
c DÖKMECI, Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul, TURKEY-dokmeciv@itu.edu.tr 
KEY WORDS: Revitalization, CBD and Kiitahya 
ABSTRACT 
Kiitahya has been the cradle of many cultures throughout the history. Especially, its population grew after the Turkish occupation and 
the city expanded beyond the walls of the city. Traditional life characteristics and traditional production stiles survived till now such 
as ceramics, textile, leather, carpets and handcrafts. Thus, the old CBD continue to preservative the business vitality together with 
religious, social and civil architecture examples and its conservative people. So, preservation of urban structure and buildings of 
CBD is the subject of this paper due to its potential for future development. 
A survey was conducted to the owners of the business on the main street, which has a potential for pedestration. According to the 
results, the pedestration of the main street will create possibilities for the development of tourism, trade, handcraft, cafe shops, 
restaurants, hotels and pensions. 
Therefore, the preservation project of CBD and pedestration of the main street will provide the opportunity for the renovation of the 
historical buildings, increase demand for their use for different functions which will increase the vitality of the old CBD. 
Furthermore, the project will also nurture the vitality of the community and to encourage existing residents to remain in the area, 
thereby preventing it from becoming a declined business center. Thus, the results of the study can be useful for policy makers, urban 
planners and investors. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
The worldwide transformation of city centers, especially in the 
developed countries, was and is also the experience of Kiitahya. 
The city has been transformed from a settlement with a modest 
population of 68.000 to a city with 160.000.residents today; a 
result of intensive internal migration and rapid urbanization 
which has also led to a significant spatial change, especially in 
the last twenty years. 
As a result of expansion of the city in the periphery and multi 
center development, the old CBD started to decline. Thus, the 
purpose of this paper is to explain strategies to revitalize the old 
CBD. 
Historic CBDs have historic architectural settings and 
townscapes with an economic value due to their aesthetic 
attributes and scarcity. There are several approaches to the 
revitalization of declining CBDs, which is a common problem 
(Frieden and Sagalyn, 1989; Porter, 1995; Tiesdale et all., 
1996). In the United States, the Main Street Program and the 
Business Improvement Districts are successful programs in 
inner city revitalization (Keister, 1990; Robertson, 2004). The 
Main Street Program is a compressive program focused on local 
opportunities in four areas; economic restructuring, 
organization, promotion and design. This program has been 
implemented in hundreds of cities. 
Based on a national survey of 57 small cities, Robertson (1999) 
found the Main Street Approach to be the most successful of 16 
downtown development strategies evaluated. Although the 
application of the Main Street Approach started with small 
cities, in the mid-1990’s the program was expanded to include 
neighborhood commercial districts in large cities (i.e. 
Baltimore, Boston, San Antonio, San Diego) Today 43 states 
host Main Street programs (Robertson, 2004). 
In Europe, City Center Management Schemes is being used to 
solve some of the problems facing city centers. Although each 
city has its own particular approach and constitutes a unique 
case that does not allow generalizations, the most developed 
City Center Management Schemes are the British Town center 
Management Schemes. Public private partnerships play an 
important role in the success of schemes (Balsas, 2000). 
The present paper deals with the revitalization of the old CBD 
of Kiitahya, which is a problem in many cities in Turkey. The 
organization of the paper is as follows: Background of Kiitahya 
is explained in the second section. The third section describes 
the revitalization of the main street of Kiitahya. Final section is 
Figure 1. Map of Kiitahya