Smart city approach and it's implementation feasibility for the metropolitan cities in Turkey

Having become the focal point of the human life sometime after the transition to settled life, the cities are like an organism which grows and thrives with humans. Considering that more than half of the world population is living in cities by 2014 for the first time, it can be said that absolute and proportional growth reached in cities such as Mumbai, Shanghai, New York and Istanbul has made the urban problems more complex. This thesis chronologically discusses certain planning approaches and initiatives developed in order to improve the urban life in the face of global problems and emphasizes that the smart city approach has emerged later as a result of particularly developments in technology and government in a manner that includes the main qualities of these planning approaches and initiatives. The purpose of this thesis, in which the outstanding smart city strategies and implementation examples in Turkey and the world are examined is to provide a study for smart city approach from the perspective of public administration and identification of implementation possibilities through internal situation assessment and external environment analysis for metropolitan municipalities in Turkey. The factors of strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities for the metropolitan municipalities in Turkey are identified with the SWOT analysis performed and various suggestions are made. Within this context, legal regulations and financial incentives are required in order to conduct interinstitutionally integrated and coordinated smart city projects in which the participation of local and various stakeholders are taken into consideration as much as global trends.