The Impacts of Real Estate Projects on Transformation of Centres in Izmir

The term real estate has exerted direct impacts on the urban finance and macro-form in changing economies of the world cities. This paper examines the urban dynamics of zmir as candidate for brand city which explain how the city has developed by major projects.Izmir has been famous as a trade center ever since its past history. In recent years, most of the efforts have been made to make the port city famous in service facilities again. The aim of the paper is to analyze the development process of central districts within the city of Izmir and to examine the role of real estate projects. During the time of ever-increasing uncertainty, a question gets more pertinently than ever: Will the main three districts maintain the reliability of the city economy in equilibrium through new planned service-based functions. Therefore a survey was conducted including interviews with the project developers who operated major investments in Konak, Bayrakl and Karyaka districts.The decision-making and implementation process, and challenges to become the central districts are related flexible, adaptable and fast-changing economy. The findings of the research put forward that the interest of the capital and the basic strategies of the plans and investments do not overlap. After strategic regional land use plan and other upper scaled plans have been realized, developers are expecting that the study area will attract significant real estate projects which have mixed use functions with various forms._Originality/value - This is the first paper to examine urban dynamics of the centers in zmir from the perspective of real estate development for better understanding to relationships between brand city vision, urban macro-form and major projects.