Fourth Review on the National Physical Plans

Abstract

Modernization effort in Turkey started as early as 1850s along with the felt need to control its spatial development. The history of this containment effort, spanning more than 100 years till 1968, demonstrates an endeavour starting from the lower scales and extending to urban scale, and then to regional level and lastly to national level. The 1st National Physical Plan Seminar, held in 1968, has resulted with proposals aiming to control this spatial development led by the development process of the nation, by making it compatible with the with the method of the existing national development plan. It has been more than 50 years since the notion of national physical plan entered our agenda which is not a short period of time. The structure and processes that have created the problem were already intervened in this last half century, and therefore the nature of the problem has changed significantly, as well as our understanding of legitimacy of planning and intervention processes. The scope of this study is not to evaluate the implementation or consistence of a solution proposed 50 years ago and to make an historical evaluation. The manuscript aims to trace out possible trajectories that can be followed in accordance with the current context of national physical planning process and our contemporary understanding of planning and its legitimacy.

Keywords

• national physical plan
• national strategy on regional development
• turkey