Urban resilience and main streets in Ankara

The decline of main streets and the rise of shopping centres have been discussed for decades. This paper aims to describe the role of main streets in achieving a high level of urban resilience. We analyse shopping preferences of main street users in terms of resilience. The increasing number of shopping centres has become a threat for main streets in Ankara, which has the highest level of shopping centre space supply among Turkish cities. Our research area covers 11 main streets in the Central Business District. Users' perceptions on various street attributes, shopping and the built environment are investigated using a survey. The survey results show that main streets are mainly used by urban dwellers living near the city centre. The users visit these streets for shopping, eating and entertainment purposes. This creates personal bonds and familiarity, offering trust in a cozy atmosphere with reasonable prices and the opportunity to bargain increase loyalty, which contributes to the economic resilience. This proves the strength of main streets and retailers on main streets to adapt to the effects of a possible economic crisis. In-depth interviews reveal that revitalisation programmes that take into account the strengths of the main streets will enhance user diversity, store variety and attract special brands in main streets.