Imagine an empire sprawling across much of southern and central Europe, western Asia and northern Africa. At its height, it formed a dominion of 2 million square miles (5.2 million km2). This was the Ottoman Empire, which arose in the 14th Century and lived on into the 20th. Its capital changed many times over the centuries, but for three decades, it lay in the city of Bursa, a two-hour journey from Istanbul.
Today, Bursa is an industrial center that is Turkey’s largest producer of motor vehicles and automotive parts, as well as textiles, beverages and processed foods. Its rich history, nearby ski resorts and hot baths provide a strong foundation for tourism. But like industrial cities around the world, it is fighting to master a changing global economy and to help its people adapt to the demands of a digital century.
Making the Most of Connectivity
Digital connectivity in Turkey is a work in progress. While private companies do business there, the incumbent operator – still controlled by the national government – has a 95% market share and keep competitors out of its network. Bursa’s government has found creative responses: a free Wi-Fi network with connection speed of up to 200 Mbps available across 60% of public areas, and mobile applications delivering municipal and tourism services to more than a half-million users, including special services for women and youth.
The city also operates networks and applications delivering a range of smart-city services specific to Bursa’s needs. These include a sensor network, data fusion platform and wearable technology for first responders; remote air quality monitoring; systems for flood detection and disaster coordination; and the tracking of excavation waste to reduce illegal dumping. These systems are part of a comprehensive Smart City plan developed through workshops and surveys conducted with public institutions, academia, NGOs, private companies and citizens.
In addition to deploying technology, Bursa has established a Smart City Academy to build talent capacity and the B-CUBE Smart City and Innovation Center to bring together startups, researchers and public stakeholders to develop technology solutions. A Public Desk contact center centralizes the receipt and handling of citizen inquiries, complaints and applications from digital and voice platforms.
Meeting the Challenges of Change
The list of deployed systems tells you much about the challenges Bursa faces. Rural areas that were home to 75% of Turks in the 1950s have gradually emptied as people pursued opportunity, leading to an urbanization rate of 77% today. With urbanization comes crowding, residential construction, pollution, rising demand for city services and social change.
To address the strains, Bursa has launched numerous programs over the past 10 years. A mismatch between employee skills and employer needs has led to serious unemployment. Pushing back on the problem, Bursa staffs an employment office that provides career counseling, training programs and onsite interview opportunities with employers. An Art and Vocational Training program launched twenty years ago has taught digital and vocational skills to more than 320,000 people and issued 209,000 Ministry-approved certificates for course completion that contribute to people’s employability.
A more recent program provides people from disadvantaged backgrounds with training in innovation, entrepreneurship and digital technologies including 3D modeling, game development, VR/AR and content creation. The Code16 Developer Training Program offers training to low-income and at-risk youth in programming, data analytics, mobile app development and project management. Looking further to the future, Bursa established 30 Early Childhood Education Centers across the city to provide programs, workshops and educational excursions, plus daily hot meals, to children ages 4 to 6. Older youth have access to a Science and Technology Center, where they can experience interactive STEM learning experiences.
Adapting to Modern Urban Life
The opportunity-seekers flooding into Bursa from the countryside need more than employment. A Family Counseling and Education Center promotes greater wellbeing with psychological counseling for individuals, couples, families and groups, as well as workshops on healthy diet choices. Each year, the Youth and Family Support Center serves thousands of individuals battling substance addictions and their families.
A Women’s Counseling Center promotes gender equality and combats gender-based violence through economic, psychological and social assistance. The Women’s Innovation and Education Unit teaches digital skills, entrepreneurship and career planning to foster economic empowerment. In a demonstration of his personal commitment to inclusive government, Bursa’s Mayor Bozbey began in 2024 to rotate his office every two weeks among the city’s 17 districts to enable citizens to voice their concerns directly to city leadership and ensure immediate response by municipal units onsite.
Managing a Changing Environment
Turkey is the meeting place of three of the Earth’s tectonic plates, making it one of the world’s most active earthquake zones. And climate change is subjecting its Mediterranean climate to increasing heat waves, droughts and flooding. Bursa has responded with projects that aim to reduce risks and speed information to affected areas. The city has installed remote water-level monitoring systems in major streams that deliver their data to a Disaster Coordination Center founded in 2025. Working with the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the city has assessed its building stock and developed an earthquake hazard map and resilience strategy. In 2023, the city’s Smart City Academy held an earthquake hackathon, in which 57 teams from 15 cities developed disaster communication, energy infrastructure and simulation solutions.
The built environment generates its own challenges. A Traffic Management Center established in 2022 has deployed cameras, sensor and AI-based tracking and analytics that saved nearly 16,000 hours of travel time, reduced fuel consumption and eliminated nearly 10 tons of carbon emissions in its first two years.
Bursa may no longer be the capital of an empire. But intelligent leadership is seeking to capitalize on the opportunities that the digital century offers to citizens and organizations of long standing in the city – and those becoming city-dwellers for the first time.
Population: 3,214,571
Website: www.bursa.bel.tr
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