Browsing by Author "Hongell, Dina"

During the past two decades Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, has witnessed a massive scale of urban renewal altering the built and natural environment of the city. This restructuring has among other things manifested in the state-led gentrification of historical inner-city neighbourhoods inhabited by the urban poor. Two such neighbourhoods are Sulukule and Tarlabaşı. Both neighbourhoods were stigmatized slum-areas whose poor building-stock and central location made them targets of state-led gentrification. These gentrification projects aimed at deriving profit from these neighbourhoods by turning them into the use of higher-income groups. In the process the socio-economic and physical characteristics of the gentrified areas were demolished, and the original inhabitants evicted. These urban projects were met with resistance by both residents and outsiders, including high profile organizations, and also received a lot of attention both in Turkey and internationally. This thesis is a comparative case study of the state-led gentrification of Sulukule and Tarlabaşı. In order of obtaining a comprehensive view and understanding of the subject this comparison is made through inspecting the subject from different angles. Of particular importance are the following theories within gentrification studies: accumulation by dispossession and the right to the city. Due to the wide-reaching socio-spatial effects of gentrification, this thesis employs a lot of description of the physical and socio-economic situations of Sulukule and Tarlabaşı. It also presents the historical background of the neighbourhoods and Istanbul at large. The gentrification of the neighbourhoods cannot be understood without this historical and descriptive context. Media is an important source for and object of examination in this work employed to add substance to the descriptions of the neighbourhoods and as a meter of public perception: It casts light on the discrepancy of how differently the projects were presented by critics and the municipalities. To this end I have used media sources consisting mainly of Turkish newspaper articles from both government critical and pro-government media, the majority of which is in Turkish. The comparison of the gentrification of the Sulukule and Tarlabaşı neighbourhoods, despite some superficial differences in for example the visibility and form of the contestation of the renewal projects, shows a striking similarity between the two gentrification projects and their execution. Both neighbourhoods were socially stigmatized and those in charge of each respective gentrification project used this stigma to legitimize the urban renewal. In neither case were the residents given a say, or a chance to participate in the projects or to refuse the project terms. In both cases the socio-economically disadvantaged residents who survived thanks to the cheap rents and centrality of their neighbourhoods and their social networks of support were evicted. Both Sulukule and Tarlabaşı were specifically targeted for urban renewal for capital profit demonstrating how urban renewal has become a tool of capital accumulation by dispossession. The gentrification of Sulukule and Tarlabaşı demonstrate how in the current urban discourse of Turkey, the city is not seen as a public space that all citizens could, irrespective of socio-economic status, have the right to enjoy, but as a playground of unrealized economic potential where the urban poor are increasingly evicted from their homes and from the city centers for the benefit of redevelopers. Despite the social injustice this picture portrays, the fact that the gentrification projects were so vocally contested and the neighbourhoods and their residents supported by both grassroots movements and established organizations, gives reason to hope for a better future.