Conveners
SS_19 CONTESTED ISTANBUL: URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING CONFLICTS IN TURKEY’S ‘ASPIRING GLOBAL CITY’
- Esin Özdemir Ulutaş (İzmir Institute of Technology)
- Enrico Gualini
The Gezi Uprising started as a localized urban protest against the redevelopment plans for Istanbul’s Taksim Square, which sought to convert Gezi Park, a public space, into a private commercial development. In the context of post-2008 urban uprisings against austerity urbanism worldwide, the Gezi protests quickly evolved into a nationwide mobilization against the government’s authoritarian...
In 2004, an urban transformation process started in Maltepe district of Istanbul, with the Master Development Plan prepared by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality for our neighbourhoods Gülsuyu and Gülensu. Gülsuyu and Gülensu are two adjacent gecekondu neighbourhoods that have been politically active. The year 2024 can be considered as a turning point for Istanbul since it was the beginning...
Henri Lefebvre’s materialist-dialectical approach to capitalist production of space, taken together with his engagement with revolutionary praxis, offers a possibility of critical and radical intervention to planning theory and practice. While his vigorous analyses of the production of space find resonation in recent critical urban theory, the mainstream urbanism has been almost opaque to his...
Recent urban changes in Istanbul have reorganized not just physical areas but also the social fabric of daily life, all within the larger framework of authoritarian neoliberalism. The process and effects of this change, embodied in risk-based redevelopment, gentrification initiatives, and mega-projects, are profoundly gendered. This presentation examines how fear, mobility constraints, and...
