Resilient urban planning process in question: Istanbul case

Purpose: This paper aims to describe an updated urban planning process to expose a theoretical model bridging the resilience concept and urban planning, and then it explains this process through Istanbul case. Design/methodology/approach: A hypothetical framework is proposed based on the three different but complementary aspects of resilience which are identified as “resilience to what”, “resilience where” and “resilience how”, as well as “five elements process” referring the upgraded components of urban planning processes. Additionally, the methodology conducted to figure out a resilient urban planning process is listed as an expert opinion survey, a two-stage policy Delphi survey, public opinion survey and multi-criteria analysis. Findings: It is possible to apply this process in many different case studies for various scales and temporalities for coping with the key vulnerabilities and promote the administrative response capacity. Research limitations/implications: Considering size of the study area and the unclarified roles of urban authorities, it is difficult to have a consensus on the key vulnerabilities and the prior urban policies. Originality/value: The proposed process is beneficial in addressing the most prominent vulnerabilities and developing capacity to manage unexpected changes, through the collaborative decisions of a wide range of urban planning authorities. Depending on the severity of the disturbances, applying this process to identify changing priorities can be a crucial policy, both for long- or short-term urban policy-making, for further studies.