In the Sixteenth century cities underwent both physical and socioeconomic changes, in the process of urban revival. Urbanization linked different communities, such as the Greeks, Muslims, Jews as well as those of new migrants together, through people’s migration to the city and their conversion to Islam. While new quarters appeared, the size of old quarters also changed. The area of some quarters decreased, and other quarters merged together. People from various classes played different roles in this development: waqf founders both from the local society and from the administrative elite (especially the grand viziers) played a role through their pious foundations. Mosques, mesjids and other buildings of these foundations, created a socioeconomic infrastructure. Quarters were named after the mosques or mesjids which carried their founder’s name. Surviving mosques are testament to the role of the charitable foundations, and their founders. The history of the city offers more evidence than these surviving buildings. Other sources include visual representations of the city (town views and topographic paintings), books, and archival documents. Each of these provides clues related to the roles played by those who used the buildings. Sixteenth century Ottoman court records of Rodosçuk (today a city called Tekirda?) are telling about the immigrants at the edge of the city. Rodosçuk experienced a population growth of almost 80% at that time. The quarters surrounding the cart road were inhabited by the workers involved in the local industries: Cart-drivers, butchers, candle makers. All inhabitants of the city adapted to the rhythm of life. The outer boundaries of cities were settlement places for poor new comers. Their strategies of survival and relations with the ecology were determined by the early modern technologies of production, transportation, control, communication and the Ottoman institutional organizations. Ottoman city is more than the implementation of a specific model to different geographies by the central authorities or their agents. Emergent stories of the inhabitants from various classes, and the rhythm of life in relation to the ecology, are important factors that define a city.