Urban Regeneration Dynamics in Medium Sized Cities: Neighbourhood Cases From Çanakkale

Following the 2012 enactment of Law No. 6306 on the Transformation of Areas under Disaster Risk, this market-driven transformation—initially concentrated in major metropolitan centres—expanded rapidly into medium-sized cities. In Çanakkale, a city highly vulnerable to earthquakes due to active fault lines and alluvial ground conditions, the implementation of this legislation began in 2013. Despite these acute environmental risks, local regeneration activities appear to be driven primarily by speculative real estate dynamics rather than objective structural vulnerability. While initial municipal strategies aimed for holistic, area-based interventions, administrative conflicts and market pressures ultimately forced a shift toward fragmented, parcel-based developments. Therefore, this study critically examines the characteristics and morphological impacts of these piecemeal implementations across the city. By synthesizing official municipal documents, spatial statistics, and local news, the research scrutinizes the distribution of renewed building stock and analyses two distinct neighbourhood case studies. These cases—Fevzipaşa and the Social Housing Area—exhibited distinct trajectories from the onset of the urban regeneration process. While the former was driven by speculative economic motives that ultimately led to gentrification, the latter began with participatory, holistic goals for seismic risk mitigation but culminated in delayed, profit-oriented implementations. The findings reveal that this profit-oriented trajectory not only significantly inflates local property values but also rapidly intensifies built density, creating a stark imbalance where surging localized populations overwhelm stagnant public amenities and municipal infrastructure.