1st Edition
Lost Informal Housing in Istanbul Globalization at the Expense of Urban Culture
The dynamics of globalization brought a radical change in megacities and tensions between the stakeholders and dwellers against top-down urban renewal policies. This unique book provides a worldview of multi-stakeholders in the urban housing market. With a longitudinal research approach, it paves the way for interdisciplinary researchers to critically assess the urban renewal projects and update such studies. The urban renewal processes are implemented without participation, and the book highlights field-based information for policymakers. The reader will find, with the information provided from the field, why participation is necessary for a sustainable urban development, why there are different types of urbanizations, and how it works under different conditions. Better understanding of the challenges of urban renewal processes in the world cities is intended with the focus on the changing informal settlements.
Istanbul is a megacity, housing more than half of its dwellers in informal settlements. After many decades of self-upgrading and silently communicating with the local authorities, the informal sector had become adapted and maintained its living spaces. Unexpectedly, the end of the first decade of the 21st century marked a radical urban land valuation and international investments. Top-down interventions started with naming Istanbul the 2010 European Capital of Culture. Then came the Law of Urban Transformation, which meant the fast decline of squatter housing and the speedy loss of its cultural value of the mahalle spirit, place identity. The book will raise curiosity on why the time has come to change the perspectives about the informal urban sector.
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
INTRODUCTION
Aims and objectives
Approach and methodology
Organization of the book
Typology and change
Chapter 1 THE INFORMAL: CULTURE OF İNFORMALİTY AND SPACE
Starting point for the informal
Definition
Related concepts
Settlement pattern of gecekondus
Mahalle concept and culture
Mahalle is a socio-spatial unit
Fit of culture and dwelling in informal settlements
Local leaders
Globalism creates highly differentiated social groups
Urban development dynamics and the layered city
Summary: incremental growth as a way of informal urbanization
Chapter 2 IN-BETWEEN: URBAN TRANSITION FROM INFORMAL TO FORMAL
Interpretations for Urban transformation based on changing views about the informal settlers
State-led and Demand-led Approaches
Greed and need: urban Space Consumption
The changing role of the informal networks
Disaster mitigation Law or Tabula Rasa
Cases
Resistance to urban renewal - a strong community: Sariyer
Women’s efforts to challenge disaster threats -positively participating: Kağıthane
Submission to Top-down urban renewal- first in emergency project and UT: Zeytinburnu
Total Displacement seemingly squatter prevention: Ayazma
Gentrification of a central Roma mahalle notoriously gentrified: Sulukule
Large-scale demolition, central lum eradicated: Tarlabaşı
From house thresholds to courts: Fikirtepe
Self-control with strong tensions: Maltepe
Summary: Difficulties with policies, life quality, and demolition
Chapter 3 FORMALIZING POVERTY TO GLOBALIZE THE CITY
Setting
Global city, mega-projects, contrasting urban architecture
Major urban actors in the formal housing market
Types of affordable housing programs for the urban poor
Social housing as a panacea
Social housing characteristics
A brief comparison of informal-gecekondu and formal-social house
Evaluation of Social housing
Mass-housing or one type fits all
Mass-housing authority (MHA) / TOKI as the major agent of urban change
Interest in global projects vs affordable housing projects
Social housing via urban transformation
Cases
Mini-new global cosmopolitan settlement: Sancaktep
Pseudo-urban renewal in an old settlement: Yeldeğirmeni
Examplary social housing, or highrises for the high end of globalism: Tozkoparan
Summary: loss of informal housing, urban memory, policy implication
Chapter 4 DISCUSSION of SOME SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS
Is social housing a panacea?
Is urban land consumption and expansion a panacea?
Is vertical development and grand scale housing a panacea?
Can the conflicting interests be reconciled in the housing market?
Summary: gap between policy and practice
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Glossary
Index
Biography
F. Yurdanur Dülgeroğlu-Yüksel currently teaches several online courses at Waqkf University on culture, space, and urban renewal and has been serving on the editorial board of The International Journal of the Open House for the last three decades. She continues to lead workshops on housing in developing countries for ENHR (European Network for Housing Research). She was the director of HREC (Housing Research and Education Center) at Istanbul Technical Institute (ITU) for six years, and was the head of the Department of Architecture, of the Faculty of Architecture for two years until retirement.
Dülgeroğlu-Yüksel conducted two major research studies on housing quality and urban transformation in Istanbul, funded by TUBITAK (MHA) and ITU, respectively, and served as a consultant in a team of ITU academicians to Kagıthane Sub-Municipality for the Disaster Awareness Project.
She also served as a jury member for TOKİ and The Ministry of Urbanization and Environment; as well as did research on Quality Mass Housing sponsored by the Mass Housing Authority on a widespread questionnaire. She has been part of an international project on two nation’s affordable housing: Turkey and Scotland (Glasgow specifically) through the Urban Mobility Fund, in the direction of UN Habitat III Conference on New Urban Agenda in 2016, culminating in two international conferences in Sweden and Cuba.
Dülgeroğlu-Yüksel also organized several national and international conferences on ISVS (International Seminar on Vernacular Settlements) with Asian scholars and collaborated with OIKONET.
Her research interests include urban housing and change, social housing, and mass housing; and interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary global housing issues in poverty-stricken urban areas.
