Efforts and effects of local economic development case of Beypazarı

Local economic development, in a broad sense, is defined as setting of specific transformational processes of an area into action. As for the concept, local economic development, it is considered as the identification of the local resources of an area/city/region, and making the effective and beneficial use of these potentials in cooperation with the actors. The attempts targeting development in local level is not observed frequently in Turkey. Beypazarı town, with the effort of the local administration, has commenced an attempt so as to restore the historical houses and this attempt has resulted in many drastic changes in the town. In this context, the aim of this disertation study is to carry out an analysis and interpretation of the transformation in Beypazarı in terms of the local economic development principles. So as to fulfill this goal, initially the definition of local economic development, the changes and improvement process of this concept, and the achievement factors of sample regions and cities from the world, which resemble Beypazarı have been discussed. Then, related literature was reviewed and some significances of local economic development were accentuated. Selected as the sample area, Beypazarı was researched in terms of the local economic development process, and the changes throughout this process was analyzed with a questionnaire study. Designed questionnaire was administered to the business sector in the area of restored historical houses, and in the town center. As a result, the changes and challenges of Beypazarı in this process were discussed and some general principles were offered for the further local based studies. In view of the data obtained from case of Beypazarı and other analyzed samples, some key concepts of local economic development have been accentuated.