WEEK 2-THE FIELDWORK

After a long (12 hour) bus drive we finally arrived at Zonguldak. Such an impressive trip it was from the Aegean coast to the Blacksea coast. Passing through major industrial centres of Turkey and observing the urban impacts of these developments and the changes in the landscape, the trip itself was a field work.

Day 1 Regional Development Issues in the West Blacksea Region

On our first day in Zonguldak our team was hosted by the West Blacksea Regional Development Agency. The Secretary General of the Agency and two urban and regional planners of the Agency made a detailed presentation of economic and spatial development issues in the wider region in which Zonguldak is located.

 The Planned Regional Development Schema of the West Black Sea Region

We were informed that the recent regional development plan of the West Blacksea Region was developed on the basis of changing the mono-sector dependent economic structure of the region and developing alternative sectors. Here the Agency stressed the so-called Filyos Valley Project of 1000 ha. land, which aimed at the development of the region as the industrial and logistics base of Turkey with the construction of the largest port of the country, a free zone, an organised industrial zone of 400 ha and several hydroelectric power plants in the most productive agricultural land of the region. Our enthusiastic team obviously had a critical approach to the project and asked challenging questions to the representatives of the Agency. We all had been very curious about the Valley where the planned project would take place and already started to think about the possible impacts of this mega project on the city of Zonguldak.

In the afternoon the research groups had their visits to various institutions in Zonguldak to collect data related with their research areas.