Smart city and blockchain applications for the improvement of the urban resilience: The case of Trabzon

Population density of communities in city centers increases year after year, entailing various problems such as climate change, resource scarcity, environmental issues, and economic insufficiency. As it takes time to fix the issues experienced within the framework of these problems, there is a case of not being able to respond to sudden shocks. The concept of resilient city has been put forward to prepare cities for sudden shocks, to reduce their fragility and to develop an emergency management plan. In view of this concept, the space is handled as a whole, and tests are run to reveal the space's ability to manage future shocks and stresses. Designed to overcome the emerging problems and to make urban life centers more livable, the use of information and communication technologies with an innovative approach has made the concept of smart city a current issue. Blockchain infrastructure technology, introduced in a period when the advancement of technology has started to create security problems, became frequent in urban applications. Considering national and international steps of urban application of blockchain infrastructure technology, good practice examples of various foreign cities as well as Turkish metropolitan cities are included in this study. The purpose of this study is to reveal the advantages of smart city and blockchain applications in increasing urban resilience and to bring some suggestions for Trabzon. The study is based on the literature review method, which is one of the qualitative research patterns. The research working group consisted of five people working in Trabzon Metropolitan Municipality. Semi-structured interview questions were used as the data collection tool in the research. According to the findings of the research, it is necessary to firstly adopt and analyze urban problems in order to develop resistance to shocks, to provide appropriate infrastructure for the city in advance, to allocate sufficient financial resources, and for the city to embrace the current technology.