Speaker
Description
The recently completed Vision 2050 Action Plan took as its starting point the intersecting global crises expected to define the 21st century, recognizing that their most dramatic consequences will be felt in metropolises like Istanbul. The Action Plan aims to address these vulnerabilities in order to create a more sustainable and resilient Istanbul.
In line with this perspective, the recently launched upper-scale planning initiative—namely, Istanbul Plan 2050—asserts that the aggressive and expansionist growth model that has shaped the city in recent decades is no longer sustainable due to the high social, geo-ecological, and economic costs it generates. Rather than preventing vulnerabilities, this model in fact amplifies them. While a number of mega-projects targeting ecologically sensitive zones well outside the built-up areas are being promoted, the existing built environment—and the lives of millions of Istanbul residents—remain under imminent threat from a major earthquake. Similar vulnerabilities appear in the form of the degradation of the environment and the ecological services as well as the inability to regenerate livelihoods for large segments of society caught in cycles of unemployment and social precarity and housing crises.
Rejecting the paradigm of so-called ‘expansionism’ and 'creative destruction'—which legitimizes opening up non-urbanized ecological areas to development and encourages redevelopment within the existing built environment—Istanbul Plan 2050 instead embraces a logic of compactness that centers on the reproduction, repair, and resilience of the urban fabric, while addressing accumulated damages and inherent vulnerabilities head-on.
