This paper aims to study the differentiations in the relationship between the town and the lake by examining the impact that the town planning, signed in 1934, had to the town of Kastoria. By building a picture of Kastoria through its different historical periods, an attempt is made to analyse the special characteristics of the town and the particular territorial model of its coastal zone.
The development of the lakefront, a particular aspect of the town planning, has determined the town's character.
After the application of the plan, the notion of the town center as the cornerstone of the town's development seems to disappear and the periphery assumes this role. In this way a new and more complex concept of space arises in which the center does not merely shift but spreads out to a wider zone.
The cutting out of the lakeside road undoubtedly removed violently many features that lent the town a particular quality and formed its distinct character. Features that developed in the time and were determined by the geomorphology of the area and its people's lifestyle were pushed aside and lost in the intense character that the lakeside road acquired. Despite the certain negative aspects of the modern town, its perspectives are important.
The account of the negative features of the present town does not aim at a nostalgic escape in the past but to look into the functioning conditions of the present and to evaluate them, as well as to create scope for possible improvement.