Urban Development of Imperial Constantinople

Constantinople is still the capital of a large Mediterranean empire in the modern day. Your pick, Byzantine/Roman, or Ottoman. How might its urban development proceed, compared to modern Istanbul's? Obviously, there will be many differences between a Byzantine and Ottoman version, hell, even just between Byzantine versions, depending on how 1204 went for the city, so just pick whichever version you like and run with it.

A few things to consider:
- The borders of the city itself may or may not grow as sprawling as modern Istanbul's.
- The city's population density might be very different, as well.
- Construction has to deal with the same archeological slow downs as modern Istanbul, no matter who is in charge (well, maybe a particularly Iconoclastic Communist government wouldn't care, but thats too horrifying to consider).
- The core of the old city is dominated by monuments of some sort, so long as it is an imperial capital, limiting development there.
- Modern Istanbul's connections (bridge and tunnel) across the strait are largely outside the old city.
 
Tried to talk about latin constantinople, turned into a big rant about my ideas for how the latin empire could survive. You don't need to hear them, lol.
 
I always imagined that had Constantinople not fallen in 1204 and remained Roman until modern times it would probably have atleast a similar feel to Venice, with a dash of Moscow. It would be a city renowned for it's beautiful historic center and culture. Although it wouldn't be a museum piece due to it's highly valuable location. I could see later developments particularily around Pera and Blachernae. It would also be highly religiously significant and would essentially be the Ecumenical Patriarch's Vatican.

Now if the Sack of Constantinople does happen as in our timeline, but it remains Roman or atleast Orthodox it would probably have a similar (albeit slightly better) development to Rome. It would be a city with a struggling population, and would be filled with great ruins of the city's bygone glorious past. Given a few centuries it would be able to recover, but much of the historical value would be lost. Most antique statues would be gone and buildings would be lacking in their original ornaments. Due to trade agreements with Venice and Genoa by Michael VIII the city would also remain very cosmopolitan, despite it's relatively population.
 
I'd say a cultural old city with tons of monuments, buildings, and statues, even more than OTL, and any new monuments are built there. Sparse housing for rich people, too. Then you would have an outer city all the way to the coast in three directions of urban development, apartment housing, and commercial centers, maybe even a few skyscrapers. I think the city would cross the strait to Anatolia, like OTL Istanbul, but it would be less developed than the European side and wouldn't stretch as far inland. On the strait, there would be ports and docks and such, of course, and military bases, too. It might be a nice, clean city in the old city, and notorious for petty crime the farther from the old city you radiate.
 
Why would it develop any different from today's Istanbul? The city was we know it today was an imperial capital. I can see the case made for an alternate Byzantine capital, but Ottoman? Was 20th century urban development that much affected by the Turkish republic?
 
Why would it develop any different from today's Istanbul? The city was we know it today was an imperial capital. I can see the case made for an alternate Byzantine capital, but Ottoman? Was 20th century urban development that much affected by the Turkish republic?

Well, here is one example:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecekondu

There’s a specific type of urban growth that is more or less unique to modern Turkey. It would not necessarily exist in an Imperial Constantinople, particular to the degree it exists in Istanbul (think of how many more cities there would be to attract migrants).

Second (and related), Istanbul has been growing at an absurd rate in the past few decades. Its population was under 1 mil at the end of WW2, and is 15 mil now. This sort of rapid growth might not happen if its an imperial capital.
 
It's sort of hard to say though if we have say "continued Ottoman Empire"(and under what circumstances?) versus surviving Byzantine Empire versus say a revived Latin Empire or Serbian Empire or who knows what.

EDIT: Also, one other question-given that there would be a push to modernize the city, how would that happen? Would we see a complete rebuilding of the central core with only the monuments really protected? Or would we see more of OTL, with a "New City" being extended under 19th century planning principles? And what happens to the old city in that case? Stagnation, a shift into primarily tourist and government use, or tbd?
 
EDIT: Also, one other question-given that there would be a push to modernize the city, how would that happen? Would we see a complete rebuilding of the central core with only the monuments really protected? Or would we see more of OTL, with a "New City" being extended under 19th century planning principles? And what happens to the old city in that case? Stagnation, a shift into primarily tourist and government use, or tbd?
I've never been to Constantinople so I may be wrong here, but isn't the first one kind of what happened OTL and not the latter? Sure many Ottoman monuments are intact but much of the historical housing has largely dissapeared from large chunks of the Golden Horn. Looking at pictures of Ottoman Constantinople in 1910 makes it almost look like a completely different city compared to today.
 
Makes sense then; I was thinking of the parts of the city outside of there(e.g. Taksim). But that probably happened there too.
 
I'm really curious about how Constantinople would look like if Greece had managed to snatch it in WW1 and keep it to this day, specifically the monuments. Obviously the Hagia Sophia minarets would have to go, but what about the other mosques? Would the Greek royal family move into the Ottoman palaces? The Greek government? It's very intriguing.
 
I'm really curious about how Constantinople would look like if Greece had managed to snatch it in WW1 and keep it to this day, specifically the monuments. Obviously the Hagia Sophia minarets would have to go, but what about the other mosques? Would the Greek royal family move into the Ottoman palaces? The Greek government? It's very intriguing.
Judging by how Ottoman Mosques were treated in the rest of the Balkans they would either be abandoned, converted to some other use or demolished all togheter. You'd probably also see much more thorough excavations in the city as I don't think the Greeks would care too much about the Ottoman infrastructure on top. On the bright side many Roman monuments would likely not be abandoned and filled with homeless people (See Bukoleon Palace and the Golden Gate).

I could easily see the Greek Kings moving into the Dolmabahçe Palace, as it was intentionally already built in a very European style.
 
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