resisting urban renewal in istanbul
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Resisting urban renewal in IstanbulOzan Karamana
a School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University ofGlasgow, East Quadrangle, University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ,ScotlandPublished online: 04 Mar 2014.
To cite this article: Ozan Karaman (2014) Resisting urban renewal in Istanbul, Urban Geography,35:2, 290-310
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2013.865444
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Resisting urban renewal in Istanbul
Ozan Karaman*
School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, East Quadrangle, UniversityAvenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, Scotland
(Received 15 September 2012; accepted 13 May 2013)
In this article I examine grassroots responses to state-directed urban renewal in twopoor neighborhoods in Istanbul. Through detailed analysis of resident perspectives andurban association tactics, I explore various factors that shape the trajectories ofresistance to urban renewal, including solidarity networks, levels of participation andtrust in local neighborhood associations, strength of neighborhood identity, extra-localsupport, and the traditions and channels of negotiation with state actors. I argue thatthese factors are articulated by a distinct “politics of compensation”—a term that Iborrow from Ananya Roy—that is particular to the contemporary neoliberal condition.I find that grassroots mobilizations in Istanbul do not necessarily operate in oppositionto neoliberalism; in fact, many struggles remain within the conceptual space ofneoliberalism and its cost-benefit calculations. These findings contribute to the emer-ging literature on struggles against urban renewal in the global south.
Keywords: Istanbul; urban renewal; grassroots resistance; neoliberalism; displacement
Introduction
Although the devastating earthquake of 1999 largely halted informal urban growth,Istanbul’s urban fabric still bears the legacy of the gecekondu (squatter houses). Amajority of Istanbul’s citizens live in buildings constructed largely outside the purviewof state regulation. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) administration, which tookoffice in 2002, has embarked on an ambitious renewal program with the goal of redeve-loping the substandard housing stock of Istanbul. Targeted areas include not only thegecekondu neighborhoods in the urban periphery but also the dilapidated housing stock inthe city center. While the official goals of these projects are to raise living standards and toincrease Istanbul’s earthquake resilience, they have become objects of discontent andcontestation as a result of the rigid top-down approach adopted by the authorities. Theseprojects have already resulted in the involuntary displacement of thousands of residents.Communities subject to urban renewal have organized their opposition in local neighbor-hood associations, resorting to various means of contestation, including litigation on thebasis of property rights, pressuring the municipal administration via social and newsmedia and local political contacts, and physical clashes with security forces in an effortto halt project implementation.
This article explores the tactics of and internal conflicts within these grassroots mobi-lizations, emphasizing their significant role in the local power relations. A multitude offactors shape the distinct trajectories of resistance to urban renewal, including the strengthof solidarity networks (especially between owners and tenants), varying levels of
*Email: [email protected]
Urban Geography, 2014Vol. 35, No. 2, 290–310, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2013.865444
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participation and trust in local neighborhood associations, strength of neighborhood iden-tities and territorialities, the extent of extra-local support, and the traditions and channels ofnegotiation with local state actors. I argue that these factors themselves are articulated by adistinct “politics of compensation” (Roy, 2009) that is simultaneously, and paradoxically,communitarian and market-centered. I show that such a framing aids in understandinggrassroots mobilizations in response to urban renewal—such as those taking place inIstanbul—that do not necessarily operate in direct opposition to neoliberalism.
There is an immense literature on poor peoples’ struggles for housing rights andaccess. Studies on various forms of popular urbanization have examined the ways inwhich communities self-organize to defend their living spaces and, through intricate websof negotiation with state actors, secure incremental gains in collective consumption(Baharoglu & Leitmann, 1998; Bayat, 2000; Benjamin, 2000, 2009; Castells, 1984;Chatterjee, 2004; Davis, 2006; Gilbert & Gugler, 1992; McFarlane, 2004; Skuse &Cousings, 2007; Soliman, 1996; Ward, 1982). Some studies have approached the self-construction of the urban periphery in terms of contested conceptions of citizenship(Miraftab & Wills, 2005; Secor, 2003) and the emergence of an “insurgent citizenship”(Holston, 2009) that goes beyond the framework of participation in formal politics.Eviction of vulnerable populations (such as the Roma or the urban poor more broadly)has also been widely investigated and exposed by transnational nongovernmental organi-zations such as the Center on Housing Rights & Evictions (COHRE) (2006) and UNHABITAT (2011), on the basis of violation of basic human rights. While these literaturesare extremely relevant for addressing current transformations in cities like Istanbul, theydo not directly address the recent urban renewal turn in the global south (Weinstein & Ren2009), resistance to which is the topic of this article.
Urban renewal is typically associated with inner city redevelopment projects inAmerican cities in the post-war period. These were officially promoted as a means ofaddressing urban poverty, yet they soon became synonymous with forced eviction anddisplacement (Gotham, 2001; Greer, 1965; Hall, 1971; Halpern, 1995; Hartman, 1971).Starting in the 1980s, urban renewal nearly disappeared in scholarly debates as NorthAmerican and European cities gradually abandoned these conflict-ridden and disruptivelarge-scale redevelopments in favor of more consensus-based and attempts (with varyingsuccess) at participatory planning practices (Altshuler & Luberoff, 2003; Weinstein &Ren, 2009). Today the rapidly urbanizing countries of the global south are undergoingtheir own phase of large-scale urban renewal (Weinstein & Ren, 2009). However, manyscholars argue that this process goes beyond a mere repetition of Euro-American history,as the new wave follows a neoliberal, property-led redevelopment model (Bervoets &Loopmans, 2013; Ha, 2004; Karaman, 2013a; Lopez-Morales, 2013; Nijman, 2008; Roy,2009; Shin, 2011; Weinstein & Ren, 2009; Zhang & Fang, 2004). My research contributesan analysis of grassroots resistance to this emerging literature.
The “right to the city” (Lefebvre, 1968) has become a popular framework foranalyzing grassroots mobilizations against political exclusion and development-baseddispossession in cities of the global south (Fernandes, 2007; Huchzemeyer, 2011;Samara, Shenjing, & Chen, 2013; Smith & McQuarrie, 2012). A complementaryliterature has developed within urban citizenship studies (Smith & McQuarrie, 2012).Many of these studies, however, present a narrow version of the right to the city, oftenusing it to mean resident demands for recognition, more participation, and higher-quality of life for the poor (Kipfer, Saberi, & Wieditz, 2013; Türkmen, 2011). Readthis way, any grassroots mobilization against eviction or displacement is imputed withambitions or potentialities of a “right to the city” politics. Often overlooked is that for
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Lefebvre the right to the city is “about asserting revolutionary perspectives on urbansociety” (Kipfer et al., 2013, p. 120; see also Mayer, 2009). As a fundamentallytransformational concept, it is about the right to “command the whole urban process”(Harvey, 2008, p. 28). Yet the tendency in urban research to frame any grassrootsresponse to urban renewal as a case of direct resistance against neoliberalism beliesthe fact that many modes of contestation actually remain within the conceptual space ofneoliberalism and its cost-benefit calculations, which privilege exchange value.
As I show through an analysis of two case studies, urban renewal in Turkey does notnecessarily intend to displace and exclude the residents – even though displacement andexclusion are often the result particularly for tenants, and those with insufficient financialmeans. In fact, urban renewal programs seek to incorporate residents as “developmentpartners” (Mukhija, 2003; cf., Karaman, 2013a; Nijman, 2008). That is, instead ofstraightforward eviction and displacement, the residents are usually offered an elaborate,market-friendly compensation plan for the loss of their homes. I explore this processthrough a comparative lens by analyzing grassroots mobilization in two neighborhoods inIstanbul. The first is the Başıbüyük neighborhood, a partially consolidated gecekonduneighborhood on the Asian side of Istanbul; the second is the historic neighborhood ofSulukule, which has been completely erased and replaced with luxury housing (andtherefore will be referred to in past tense) (see Figure 1). The first half of the articleexplains my methodological approach and introduces the case studies, while the secondhalf deals with themes of resistance and negotiation in the neighborhoods under study.
Figure 1. Istanbul administrative borders and locations of fieldwork sites.
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A comparative approach
Başıbüyük and Sulukule exemplify two different facets of urban renewal in Istanbul: theredevelopment of a peripheral informal neighborhood and the state-led gentrification of aninner city slum respectively. These two projects are among the first examples of urbanrenewal in the AKP period and are two of Istanbul’s most prominent in terms of scale andcontroversy. Additionally, neither of the neighborhoods has recent history of organizedresistance.
Başıbüyük is a gecekondu settlement where none of the homeowners have legalclaims to the houses they inhabit, whereas Sulukule was largely composed of formalhousing before its destruction. Başıbüyük is a relatively new neighborhood dating back toearly 1960s; Sulukule was one of the oldest neighborhoods of Istanbul, one of the rareplaces where one could still accurately trace the historic street pattern of Ottoman-eraIstanbul. Another major difference is that Sulukule was home to a very old ethnic minoritycommunity, a Roma community whose presence in the vicinity dates back to the eleventhcentury (Marsh, 2010). Başıbüyük on the other hand has a less homogenous demographicstructure, made up of residents who migrated to the neighborhood from diverse regionsacross Turkey. Finally, unlike the Başıbüyük project, the “renewal” of Sulukule had anovert ethnic integration objective that was framed as “saving” Sulukule’s Roma from their“misery” and incorporating them into society. Given these fundamental differencesbetween these two neighborhoods and their renewal histories, a systematic, point-by-point comparison between the two would be a futile attempt. The approach I adopt here iscloser to the “variation-finding” comparative method, which was conceptually introducedby Tilly (1984) and later utilized by Brenner (2001) for classifying comparative work onworld cities. Robinson (2011) has further articulated the value of this method, highlightingthe potential benefits of comparing very different contexts. Thus, the following analysisdiscusses the differences of grassroots mobilization in response to urban renewal in two,quite diverse, settings.
Kuyucu and Ünsal (2010) have conducted a similar comparative analysis of grassrootsmobilization in Başıbüyük and Tarlabaşı neighborhoods. The latter—like Sulukule—is asite of state-led gentrification in the historic city center. Kuyucu and Ünsal conclude thatthe tenure structure of a neighborhood is the main factor determining the strength ofgrassroots resistance. The authors argue that grassroots organizing in Tarlabaşı wasrelatively more effective because the residents had formal status and grounded theirresistance in property rights. By contrast, since the Başıbüyük residents lacked formalclaim to their property it was easier for the municipality to coax them into accepting theiroffers and participating in the renewal project.
While their analysis is quite insightful, there are a number of shortcomings to Kuyucuand Ünsal’s conclusion. First, in the current situation it is extremely difficult to declareany local-based grassroots mobilization more effective than another, as these struggles areongoing processes far from any sense of “completion.” For instance, at the time ofwriting, a significant portion of the residents of the Tarlabaşı renewal area have alreadybeen evicted. The demolitions are underway, and for the moment, the renewal project isbeing executed without any significant resistance. As I discuss below, in the case ofSulukule, which—like Tarlabaşı—is a formal neighborhood, the renewal project has beenalmost fully implemented, displacing nearly the whole community. Second, it is not onlytoo early but also methodologically dubious to deem one grassroots organization moreeffective than another on the basis of existing tenure structure, as the trajectories of urbanrenewal are convoluted and are overdetermined by a variety of factors. From the
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perspective of the implementing authorities, the rent gap—the difference between actualrent of the area and the potential rent that could be captured through intensification—appears to be a much more significant factor in the selection of areas to be targeted forurban renewal than the perceived tenure security.1 Additionally, analyses of urban renewalin other cities indicate that the presence of formal titles often provides little meaningfulsecurity against urban renewal (Fawaz, 2013, p. 34).
My analysis shows that there is not a single predominant factor that determines thetrajectories of grassroots mobilizations and urban renewal in general. These are over-determined by a multitude of local and extra-local dynamics, alliances and discourseswhich I explain in this paper. Here, I do not presume a clean-cut opposition betweengrassroots resistance and neoliberal urban renewal, as the former is often already imbri-cated in the latter through a politics of compensation and inclusion.
Primary data collection for this study was carried out over a period of 12 nonconse-cutive months in Istanbul (June–August 2007, March–August 2008, January–March2009, and November 2012). Data regarding residents’ responses and grassroots dynamicswere collected through participant observation, life histories, and open-ended interviews.Through ethnographic fieldwork I documented informal exchanges and observations incoffee shops, on the streets, and in people’s homes. During my fieldwork in Başıbüyük Imaintained a close relationship with IMECE (Popular Urbanism Movement), a city-wideinitiative led by a group of activists, students, and academics. In Sulukule, I wasassociated with the Sulukule Platform, which is also a volunteer-based citizen actiongroup advocating a more participatory approach to urban renewal.
Başıbüyük: redeveloping the gecekondu
Başıbüyük, once a marginally positioned gecekondu settlement, is now considered a primeland due to the rapid expansion of Istanbul’s boundaries over the last two decades. Thearea’s newfound desirability is largely due to its positioning within one of Istanbul’s fewremaining forest areas, its connectivity to main transportation axes, and the magnificentviews of the Sea of Marmara. Başıbüyük was declared an urban renewal area on February2006 by a joint protocol ratified by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB), the localmunicipality (Maltepe Municipality), and the Turkish Housing DevelopmentAdministration (TOKI). The project aims to gradually redevelop the whole neighborhood,which is home to around 16,000 people. As the first phase of redevelopment, six apartmenttowers were erected in the vacant plot of land in the middle of the neighborhood in 2008. Ashare of these apartment towers was to accommodate the residents in the immediate vicinityso as to clear space for the next round of construction-demolition. Through this concentricredevelopment scheme, the whole neighborhood was expected to be redeveloped at ahigher density than its current situation, which is characterized by a mixture of detachedhouses with gardens and low-rise apartment buildings.
When the construction company contracted by the TOKI approached the neighbor-hood on a February morning in 2008, it was met with a firm grassroots resistance(Karaman, 2012, 2013a; Lovering & Türkmen, 2011, pp. 90, 91). The residents blockedthe road, throwing stones at the trucks carrying construction equipment. The escortingpolice responded by firing tear gas and brutally beating up the residents as they dispersed.Dozens of people, including the leadership of the local neighborhood association, werearrested and charged with assaulting security forces. A few weeks later, the contractormade a second attempt, this time accompanied by more police force and increased levelsof brutality. A portion of the construction equipment was finally transported to the
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worksite. After a few more days of intense physical confrontation, the TOKI contractorwas able to establish the worksite, and the police set up a permanent base in theneighborhood. The first round of apartments were completed in 2009 (Figure 2).Meanwhile, the municipality carried out individual negotiations with the residents. Oneby one, residents who agreed to the terms of the municipality’s resettlement programmoved to the new development, thereby allowing the municipality to demolish theirexisting gecekondus. At the time of writing, all the six apartment towers (324 units)were occupied. A fraction of the flats were allocated to police officers and other publicservants as state-provided social housing. Some flats were also sold out to non-Başıbüyükresidents. It is not clear if and when the second stage of the renewal project will begin.
Sulukule: gentrifying “the monstrosity”
Prior to its gradual demolition between 2006 and 2009, Sulukule, with its low-rise housesand narrow, winding streets, stood out from its surroundings (Figure 3). The neighbor-hood was also very rare in terms of the existence of a highly communitarian lifestyle.Many of the residents were related to each other, and the borders separating the neighbor-hood from the rest of the city were clearly marked (Karaman & Islam, 2012). For decadesSulukule’s only interfaces for interacting with the outside world were what were known as“entertainment houses” (eğlence evleri or devriye evleri). These were family-run privateclubs, made up of several private rooms featuring live music bands and belly dancers.These houses were first established in the early 1940s and remained as the main source ofincome for the whole Roma community up until the early 1990s, when the authorities shutthem down with charges of prostitution and drug trade. The closure of the entertainmenthouses pushed the neighborhood into serious economic and physical downturn (Somersan& Kırca-Schroeder, 2008). Other social issues that affect many Roma neighborhoods,such as low school attendance and reliance on child labor, further worsened the socio-economic situation. A formal survey conducted in 2006 (Tuna, Şatıroğlu, &Çağlayandereli, 2006), provides a snapshot: 30% of the population was illiterate2 andonly 4% finished high school. 64% did not have any form of social security. 17%households had no person with any form of employment, and 13% relied on incomesupplied by children only.
Figure 2. TOKI towers under construction, February 2009 (photo by author).
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In December of 2005, Sulukule was declared an urban renewal site by a joint protocolsigned by the IBB, the local municipality (Fatih Municipality), and the TOKI. A year later,the central government passed an “urgent expropriation” decree and Sulukule residents wereinformed about the decision via mail. The renewal project developed by the municipalityinvolved the complete demolition of all existing houses (690 units) saving a few historicbuildings; an “Ottoman style neighborhood” was to replace what was razed. Carried out inthe name of “saving Sulukule from its current monstrosity” (Erdoğan, 2008), the project hasdisplaced the great majority of the original residents. After the culmination of the demolitionphase in 2009, the construction of new houses is nearing completion at the time of writing.
Between insurgent and neoliberal citizenship
There is a long and well-documented history of grassroots activism against squatterevictions in Turkish cities. With increasing mechanization of agriculture in the country-side and the emergence of Istanbul as the industrial heartland of Turkey in the late 1950s,an increasing number of rural residents migrated to Istanbul in search of jobs in theburgeoning manufacturing sector (Şenyapılı, 2004). In the absence of a state-facilitatedhousing program, these new Istanbulites sought shelter in makeshift shacks that they builton state-owned (and to a lesser extent privately owned) lands in the urban periphery.
As Keyder (1999, 2005) explains, an absence of a fully capitalist regime of propertyrelations allowed this chaotic urban development regime to endure for decades. As thelargest owner of land, the Turkish state did not take an active role in allocating public landto the newcomers or auctioning it to private developers. Instead, land resources wereallocated through populist, clientelist networks (Günes–Ayata, 1994; Öncü, 1988).Authorities turned a blind eye to gecekondus, as these spontaneous developmentsabsolved both the state and manufacturing businesses from the liability of providinghousing to the newly arriving migrants, despite Turkey’s reliance on their labor power.
Figure 3. A view of Sulukule from the top of the Theodosian city walls, May 2008. Many housesare already demolished (photo by author).
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State lands distributed in this fashion were an indirect subsidy to the migrants and can beconsidered as a uniquely informal element of Turkey’s import-substitution industrializa-tion (ISI) era welfare state policies (Işık & Pınarcıoğlu, 2001; Öncü, 1988).
Within the framework of this populist approach to unauthorized urbanization, formergecekondu areas gradually transformed into densely built neighborhoods (Öncü, 1988).While the emergence of gecekondus took place within a fairly peaceful context (Işık &Pınarcıoğlu, 2001), threats of eviction never ceased. Assurance granted during the term ofone local politician or mayor never guaranteed long-term tenure security. A sizableliterature exists on gecekondu residents’ grassroots organization against eviction and theirstruggle to secure public amenities and infrastructure (Aslan, 2004; Bozkulak, 2005;Drakakis-Smith, 1976; Erder, 1996; Güneş-Ayata, 1990; Karpat, 1976; Şenyapılı, 2004).While contemporary popular mobilizations retain some continuities with past struggles,urban renewal introduces several differences into the context of resistance organizing.
First, urban renewal presented a new institutional framework by empowering TOKI,which has extraordinary authority for managing state-owned lands, implementing masshousing projects, and partnering with local municipalities across Turkey, to realize urbanrenewal projects. Secondly, urban renewal targets both informal settlements and formalneighborhoods (such as Sulukule). In a previous era, the gecekondu residents had a veryclear stance against threats of eviction: thwarting demolitions and, in the long term,acquiring legal title deeds. In a few areas where leftist/revolutionary organizations wereactive—such as the famous 1 Mayis [May day] neighborhood (Aslan, 2004)—communitiesdeclared liberated zones. Their political demands went beyond a right to housing and posedan open challenge to the established order, along the lines of the “right to the city.” In theneoliberal era, the parameters of resistance have changed dramatically. For the first time, thethreat of demolition is coupled with market-friendly compensation plans for residents.
According to prevailing policy, the property owners (with varying degrees of tenuresecurity) within an urban renewal area are allowed to live in the renewal project on thecondition that they pay the difference between the current value (the expropriation value) oftheir houses and the one they would get in the new development. In the case of gecekonduneighborhoods such as Başıbüyük the current value is calculated only on the basis of thematerials that went into the construction of the gecekondu, as the land itself is owned by thestate. The difference is paid in monthly installments over a period of 15–20 years. On average,as of 2009, this amounted to roughly 200 TL (US $125) in Başıbüyük and 600 TL (US $375)in Sulukule on amonthly basis,3 which are significant financial burdens for the residents, mostof whom are underemployed or unemployed. The tenant residents are typically not offeredany form of compensations and therefore face direct eviction. The biggest selling point ofrenewal claimed by the local municipalities is the promise of acquiring a house with asignificantly higher market value, and in the case of gecekondu settlers, the transition toformal ownership status.4 Residents are also coaxed with the promise of family-friendly,secure settlements. These negotiations are carried out in an individualized fashion, for whichthe AKP uses its extensive Islamic grassroots networks (Karaman, 2013b).5
Referring to Bou Akar’s (2005) and Harb’s (2001) work on Hezbollah’s urban renewalprojects in the poor suburbs of Beirut, Roy (2009) notes how a “calculus of compensa-tion” thwarts group mobilization against renewal, and produces an “entrepreneurial sub-jectivity.” The politics of compensation, as Roy argues, is therefore the politics ofinclusion and participation in the production of urban space. I argue that the politics ofcompensation in Turkey severely limits the utility of the “right to the city” framework forunderstanding residents’ responses and conflicts of interest within grassroots mobiliza-tions. The conflict is not simply between the neoliberal expropriators and the urban social
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movements’ defense of their right to the city. Here, both the use and exchange values ofhousing are at stake for most residents (see also Kuyucu & Ünsal, 2010; Lovering &Türkmen, 2011). Two major camps emerged in each of my neighborhoods of study: thosewho opposed urban renewal and those who saw certain opportunities in the project.
In Başıbüyük the opponents of renewal are mainly residents who hold “title assigna-tion documents” (TTB).6 They demand legal title deeds from the municipality, anunfulfilled promise made to them by the mayor before the 2004 municipal elections. Intheir view, owning legal title to the land would enable full rights of ownership. They couldthen sell the land to a contractor in return for a fixed share7 of the flats to be constructedon the location of their existing gecekondu. As Nurcan, a 50-year-old housewife, explains:
I wouldn’t want [my house] to remain as a gecekondu either. Let it be demolished! But firstthey should give us legal titles and then we will demolish it ourselves! We can re-build theneighborhood ourselves. They [the municipality and the TOKI] want to demolish and filltheir pockets. Why would I let them? I want to rebuild it myself and I want to profit myself. Imean the residents should be allowed to benefit, not the state. . ..They should let us do it,instead of taking it upon themselves. Three of us will come together and build a six storyapartment building.8
The second group of residents are mostly those without TTBs and thus with minimaltenure security. For them, this project will be a shortcut to complete legality. As Cahit, inhis early 40s, explained:
[pointing towards his house] Now look at this house, what is it worth? Nothing! Who wouldbuy this house? But with the municipality’s project we will own houses with real marketvalues. Now the municipality is asking us to pay 30 thousand, but after the project iscompleted these houses will be worth at least three times as much as that; it will be better.
Another resident who is in favor of the project claims:
When they re-make this neighborhood, it will be more regular, and planned; people fromother places will come to buy houses, business and jobs will come here and the neighborhoodwill be a better place, and our houses would be worth more.
In Sulukule, a similar contrast of opinions existed among the residents, although aconcern with direct monetary benefits was less pronounced compared to Başıbüyük.The majority of Sulukule residents opposed the renewal project altogether; this groupwas predominantly composed of those who had no means of participating in the project.As Nuray, a 35-year-old housewife explained:
I was born here, my grandparents were born here, Go look at our cemetery; you will see sometombstones from the Ottoman times. We don’t have a village to go back to [unlike gecekonduresidents]. When our houses are demolished we will be on the streets. We have everythinghere; I have my neighbors and my relatives. People here wouldn’t know how to liveanywhere else.
Hadi is a 38-year-old native of Sulukule. He was more cautious about urban renewal butadmitted that it would be beneficial for him, at least in monetary terms. Since he shutdown his small textile workshop in 2006, he had lived off the rent of three flats and a shophe owned in the neighborhood. He said, “this will be profitable for me, my properties will
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be more valuable, and I have the means to pay; of course it will be bad for the majority ofthe people, they will be evicted, and these are my people after all.”9
In Sulukule, tenant residents—58% of the neighborhood population—were offered aresettlement plan in an off-site location, called Taşoluk, located 40 km outside the citycenter. To relocate they had to agree to an “affordable” payment plan similar to those forthe owner residents. Given their very low levels of income and the remoteness of theproposed resettlement area, most of the tenants did not relocate to Taşoluk. Instead theysold their “entitlements” to real estate speculators, creating a market around the sale andtrade of “entitlement” documents. At the end of the process, almost all of the tenants hadmoved to smaller substandard houses in the immediate vicinity of Sulukule or werepushed further away from the city center (Figure 4). Yet still, a few were happy aboutthe opportunities this created. Salih, a 47-year-old male coffee shop-owner, told me thathe started his business with the money he received in return for his entitlement, which helater sold to a third party for 25,000 TL (US $15,600): “I used to work at a coffee house;the municipality gave me entitlement for a house in Taşoluk. I didn’t even bother goingthere. I sold it to a middleman right away. God bless the municipality—I had never seen25,000 all at once before. Now I own this business.” Salih is among the fortunate, asmany of the tenants were not even granted entitlements because they failed to provide“certification” of their tenancy (such as utility bills, apartment lease etc.).
Given these complicating factors, both in Başıbüyük and Sulukule, the localneighborhood associations and grassroots mobilizations found themselves in a difficultsituation of navigating conflicting interests and assumptions, oscillating betweenuncompromising resistance and pressure to negotiate for favorable terms of resettle-ment. The former position—which is similar to the position of gecekondu dwellers of
Figure 4. Relocation map of Sulukule families (n = 52) as of May 2008. Data sources: fieldworksurveys and the Sulukule Platform. See also Sulukule Studio (2009) for a relocation map as of 2009.
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a previous era—aims to thwart the renewal project altogether. The latter, on the otherhand, is based on the acceptance of urban renewal as inevitable and/or desirable andaims to secure the most favorable compensation possible.
Negotiating demands, negotiating with the state
In 2006, a small group of community leaders in Başıbüyük founded a local grassrootsassociation10 to defend the neighborhoods’ rights against the renewal project. SoonHalil, a retired civil servant in his late 50s and a highly revered member of thecommunity, assumed presidency. It was under his leadership that the residents clashedwith the security forces for weeks between February and April of 2008 to halt therenewal project. In the face of this unexpectedly strong opposition, the municipalityagreed to talk with the representatives from the neighborhood association, assuring themthat “nothing would be imposed upon them by force” (cited in Atayurt & Kuyucu, 2008,p. 37). Having received this assurance, the association decided to allow the constructionto begin. Halil revealed to me that this decision was inevitable because the neighborhooddid not have any more stamina left for further resistance. This effectively marked the endof active grassroots resistance in the neighborhood. Some residents accused the associa-tion of betrayal and of carrying out clandestine negotiations with the municipality,disregarding the common will of the neighborhood.11 Indeed, while the associationinitially opposed the renewal plan, its primary demand, in the end, was that residentshave no debt obligations upon resettlement. Halil explains the complicated nature of thesituation:
Now they [the district municipality] tell us that “soon the urban transformation law will bepassed. If that happens then the TOKI will have the authority to implement urban renewalwith off-site resettlement. Then you might be sent off to a remote location. While we are stillin office you should take advantage of this project.” We have to take that risk into considera-tion too. (quoted in Atayurt & Kuyucu, 2008, p. 41, my translation)
The association was left in an awkward position. It initially mobilized the residentsagainst the renewal project, but also never took the project completely off the table.This has created tensions and misunderstandings between the association and the com-munity. During a meeting at the association’s headquarters I witnessed one instance ofconfrontation between a resident and the lawyer of the neighborhood association. Thelawyer was trying to explain to the middle-aged woman—who was critical of theassociation’s negotiations with the municipality—why her expectation of acquiring legaltitle deed for her house was in vain:
They [the municipality] cannot go back to old habits anymore. Do you know why? There is anew function ascribed to Istanbul, they [the IBB] are preparing plans for it. At this point theera of tenure legalization is over for Turkey. It is over! From now on no administration is in aposition to implement improvement plans. We need to be realistic.
The association has been in a state of active negotiation with the municipality sinceApril 2008 regarding the terms of the compensation and conditions of resettlement.Eventually the municipality offered slightly higher prices of compensation and longerterms of payment for the poorest segment of residents, but refused resettlement withoutdebt. This stage of negotiation was met with significant opposition from thecommunity.
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I met Tarık on a warm May day in 2008; he was 20 at the time but looked much olderdue to visible scars on his face and his cloudy eyes. We were waiting for a press release bythe neighborhood association regarding the current state of negotiations with the munici-pality. A sizable crowd had gathered in the small junction right across the constructionsite.
Tarık: “Uncle [dayi] it’s all the same. They come, speak, then people clap, and theyleave. After ten minutes everyone is gone. You see these old people with suits; Ihate that. People dress up as if it means something. Only if there were morepeople with me, I would storm the whole area.”
Author: “Where are the young people? At work or something?”Tarık: “No one is at work [laughing nervously] they are in the coffee shops. Uncle,
they are all scared. Their parents don’t let them. . .. Once I stormed the localgovernor’s office [muhtarlık] all by myself. I was on TV. Lots of cops had tocome to take me out. I was arrested. That’s me [in a rather proud tone]. I don’tunderstand what kind of a neighborhood this is. I couldn’t figure out thisneighborhood for 20 years. We have old people and women here, nothing else.”. . .
Author: “So what is to be done?”Tarık: “One thing I know for sure is that, you cannot compete with the state on paper,
wearing business suits.”Author: [nodding]
. . .Tarık: “So the only means to struggle is to fight. But these people, they are so eager to
put on their business suits. It is sickening.”Author: “Aren’t you underestimating a little? These people resisted for so long.”Tarık: “But it’s all gone now. Because they [the association] kept holding us back, and
now no one is left. No one is constructing barricades. . . They always asked usto wait and wait. ‘Don’t throw stones at the cops.’ And now there is no one leftexcept me. All these people are cowards. They are afraid of the police. Whatcould the police do? They will just beat you up that’s all.”
In Sulukule, the tension between resistance and negotiation was of a quite different nature.In Başıbüyük, there is a precedent to negotiation with state actors and politicians fromprevious decades of gecekondu consolidation. Residents are confident in their rights ascitizens, and even have representatives in the local assembly. For them, the office of themayor does not imply an abstract notion of an almighty state, but one with which they cannegotiate. Sulukule, however, had many features of an impoverished, ethnic-minority ghettoand historically had no channels of negotiation with the state. As one resident put it,Sulukule was “an open air prison in the minds of the state” (quoted in Karaman & Islam,2012, p. 240). The only visible facet of the state was its oppressive apparatuses. Just likemany other Roma communities across Eastern Europe, the Sulukule community had noknown history of organized grassroots mobilization against the state. As Hadi explains:
We [the Roma] fear the state; we respect the state. Here there are Kurds, Greeks, all kinds ofpeople. But the Roma people are the most compliant to the state. We fear the state; we neveroppose it. I rather owe you 5,000 than owe the state one cent.
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In this narrative, the state is conceptualized as a detached and abstract entity with absolutepower, with which one is better off not having any kind of exchange. When rumors abouturban renewal began to circulate at the end of 2005, the residents of Sulukule treated italmost as a natural disaster; in a state of panic, many residents succumbed to the offers ofreal estate speculators, assuming these would be better than any state-provided compensa-tion in the event of expropriation. In June 2006, Şükrü Pündük, a musician in his late 30sand a prominent figure in the Roma community, founded the Sulukule Roma CultureAssociation (SRCA hereafter)12 to organize against the renewal project. However, theassociation suffered from a lack of sustained grassroots participation in its activities.
In 2007 a group of volunteer activists, journalists, researchers, and students established acity-wide advocacy group called the Sulukule Platform with the goal of halting the renewalproject and promoting a community-centered planning approach. The Sulukule Platformworked closely with the SRCA in emphasizing the neighborhood’s unique musical enter-tainment culture, its lively streets, the communal use of space, the economic inter-depen-dencies vital to the survival of the community, and assimilationist and racist motives to therenewal project. This culture and identity focused approach was very successful in garneringthe support of various national and international organizations, and mass media against theproject. However, framing the issue in terms of defending Roma interests created seriouslimitations to organizing a strong grassroots movement that could address the concerns ofthe residents in the renewal area as a whole. A significant segment of the Sulukulepopulation did not self-identify as Roma (including those who denied their Roma roots13)and did not want to be associated with any form of struggle that would entail the defense ofRoma culture and revival of entertainment houses. This sentiment became stronger as onemoved further away from the area where entertainment houses used to be. Murat is 35 yearsold and owns a meatball kiosk. He does not identify as Roma. Like many others he resentsthe name “Sulukule,” and prefers “Neslişah Sultan,” the official administrative name of thelarger neighborhood. When I asked him about his opinions on the SRCA and the Platformhe replied: “there is no culture here anymore; the only culture that exists now is the cultureof wickedness (immorality).14 I have nothing to do with their culture and I have nothing todo with their association” (Karaman & Islam, 2012, p. 237).
This discontent was exploited by a second neighborhood association. Utilizing anIslamist-moralist discourse, it tapped into and mobilized existing anti-Roma sentiments inthe neighborhood and to some extent managed to undermine the SRCA’s efforts. Thissecond association—founded with support from the municipality—repeated the munici-pality’s arguments about how the project would make the neighborhood more family-friendly and prosperous.
In short, mobilization in Sulukule initially was restricted to the defense of Romarights, and was led by the members of the Sulukule Platform (none of whom was fromSulukule) in collaboration with the SRCA. The Platform forged links with internationalorganizations such as such as UNESCO, UN-Habitat, UN Human Rights Council,COHRE, U.S. Helsinki Commission, and the European Parliament, ensuring that theinjustices of the Sulukule renewal project were discussed at length in reports, and progressreports on Turkey. Platform members also established a children’s center in the neighbor-hood and organized literacy, art, and music classes. Yet soon, the internal chasm in theneighborhood sparked debates within the Platform as well. As Meryem, a member of theSulukule Platform explained:
For me it doesn’t make any difference if people in Sulukule are musicians; I don’t care if theyare Roma either. For me what is important is the fact that these people will be on the streets,
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that kids are dying of hunger at the age of five, that people are dying because of lack of healthcare. I don’t like this elitist nostalgic perspective that some activists project on Sulukule.Sulukule is marketed through its culture.
As the demolitions continued apace and more people were evicted, a culture-centeredmobilization strategy alone proved to be inadequate. Those who struggled for preservationof Roma heritage—art historians, architects, and journalists—were increasingly challengedby those like Meryem, who maintained that the Platform should not impose any agenda uponthe people and should simply be in a position to respond to their immediate needs. The lattergroup was mostly composed of students, activists, and social workers, who were physicallypresent in the neighborhood on a regular basis (Turan, 2009). As the immediate problems ofthe evicted residents became more pressing, the agenda of the latter group began to dominateand the Platformmoved toward amore accommodating negotiation stance, pushing for propercompensation and re-accommodation of evicted residents (most importantly the tenants). Inshort, the Platform’s agenda shifted toward the politics of compensation. The Platformorganized a series of meetings with tenant residents and helped them with the bureaucraticprocedure of certifying their tenancy status in the neighborhood prior to the project. I wasamong the volunteers responsible for helping residents to assemble the required documentsand draft petitions to the municipality. These meetings were very well attended compared toprevious attempts to mobilize the residents, as they addressed very urgent and immediateissues of the tenant residents. Thanks to the Platform’s efforts, many tenants were able tocertify their tenancy status, thereby receiving compensation for their displacement.
Extra-local support and legitimization
The extent to which neighborhoods targeted by urban renewal receive extra-local supportand solidarity is another major factor shaping the trajectories of urban renewal. In the caseof Başıbüyük, a major impediment for widespread public support of grassroots activitieswas its perceived status as an “illegal” neighborhood. Since the early 1980s, as a conse-quence of tenure legalization strategies and the commodification of the gecekondu, thegenerally-held perception of the typical gecekondu dweller shifted from that of a poor, yetambitious, hardworking rural migrant to that of an illegal occupant profiting off state-ownedlands (Bozkulak, 2005). Başıbüyük suffered significantly from this negative portrayal. Myexchange with an elderly street vendor in Başıbüyük is illustrative. He lives in anotherneighborhood, where he is the legal owner of an apartment. When I asked his opinion aboutthe ongoing conflict in the neighborhood, he retorted:
These people have illegally occupied these lands, and now they are making such a huge fussabout it. Just because I didn’t occupy am I guilty? I pay 480 TL tax every year for myapartment. These people don’t pay a dime of tax. I worked in a hospital for years and now Iam trying to make a living by selling simit,15 but these people just occupy land and now theywant to profit from it. Do you know what makes me really sad? When these people throwstones at the police and the police tanks, they are harming things that were bought by the taxmoney I paid.
The grassroots organizers’ legitimacy crisis is further exacerbated by a relative deficit ofneighborhood commons. Compared to Sulukule, Başıbüyük has fewer “moral attributes ofa community” (cf. Chatterjee, 2004, p. 57).16 As an experienced activist lawyer who hasbeen offering his bona fide service to variety of neighborhoods across Istanbul for years,explained during a meeting of urban activists:
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In all redevelopment sites, resistance takes the form of defense of property rights excludingany sense of belonging to the neighborhood as a whole; for people like us [activists] thisraises the ethical question of defending private property. There is no neighborhood life, nopublic life, and no tradition of democratic grassroots organization. A gathering of 200 peopleis suddenly reduced to 80 because of inter-ethnic conflict and political strife. For instance, inBaşıbüyük, the place they see as their own is their house only. They didn’t even consider justthrowing a couple of chairs in the green space in the middle of the neighborhood [the areawhere six apartment towers were eventually constructed by the TOKI]
The main centers of socialization are also a testimony to the frailty of social cohesion atthe neighborhood scale: at these “regional associations” (yöre dernekleri), mostly maleresidents from a particular region of Turkey gather to socialize. The absence of tenants inthe grassroots mobilization is another symptom of lacking community cohesion. Eventhough they make up one third of Başıbüyük’s population they are typically omitted frompolitical participation (both by the municipality and the neighborhood association),because they don’t have a stake in the neighborhood as “property owners.” Some tenantresidents have internalized this mentality, believing they are not party to this conflictbecause their property is not in jeopardy. Sulukule tenant residents, in contrast, were partof the debate from the beginning.
The only substantive source of extra-local support for Başıbüyük has been through the“Alliance of Istanbul Neighborhood Associations” (IMDP), a now-defunct confederationof 11 neighborhood associations across Istanbul. It formed in February 2008 and dis-solved in 2010. Yet, apart from a few youngsters from neighboring gecekondu commu-nities who joined forces with the residents of Başıbüyük during the days of initial clasheswith the police, Başıbüyük received limited support from the IMDP. Due to a deficit inextra-local support and a general lack of sympathy from the population at large, thegrassroots mobilization in Başıbüyük was largely dependent on its endogenous capacities.
In contrast, Sulukule featured more elements emblematic of a tight knit community.The unique arrangement of living spaces blurred the divisions between the private and thepublic. Typical of Roma settlements in Eastern Europe (cf. Fonseca, 1996) individualhouses opened to communal courtyards, where most daily chores were done in common,and courtyards opened to streets through narrow passageways. The streets were activelyused and occupied – predominantly by women and children (Çubukçu, 2011).17 Streetswere also appropriated for public events. As David Sibley (1998, p. 98) points out, “[c]ultural forms may include a ‘hidden’ economy which gives the group some autonomy butwhich may become inoperable if the minority is incorporated into the larger society.” Theleader of the SRCA, Şükrü Pündük, explains these hidden dimensions in Sulukule:
We are living in solidarity here; we share our bread. If someone doesn’t make any money thatday, I can pull out 10TL (US $6) and give it to him. We can go to our local grocery store andbuy a single diaper, a single cigarette, a couple of olives. And if I don’t have money that day,I can always pay later. Would I be able to do the same in a supermarket? When everyone isworried about paying their individual monthly payments, no one will help anyone.18
In garnering extra-local support, alongside defense of “Roma rights” the SulukulePlatform emphasized – and to a large extent actively constructed representations around– common neighborhood life and moral community. In this respect, it was able to speak toa concern about a community’s right to existence and mobilize sentiments outside thepolitics of compensation. The injustice that fell upon the Sulukule residents was widelycovered by even the mainstream media, which exposed the involvement of AKP members
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and municipal officers as chief actors in the real estate speculation. Numerous groups ofresearchers, students, artists, and activists from across the world visited the neighborhood.The pressure mounted to such an extent that the TOKI admitted to some defects in therenewal project and agreed to consider an alternative project led by an independentprofessional initiative called “Autonomous Planners without Borders” (the Turkish acro-nym is, conveniently, “STOP”) with backing from the Sulukule Platform and the SRCA(Sulukule Platform, 2009). This alternative plan replaced the municipality’s high-endproject with smaller units aimed at allowing all residents to stay in the neighborhood.Yet while the TOKI gave the impression that this alternative plan was given seriousconsideration it was eventually dismissed as unrealistic. Another nontrivial factor in termsof extra-local support was accessibility. Sulukule’s central location in the historic citycenter made it visible and accessible for activists, journalists, and politicians compared torelatively peripheral Başıbüyük.19
Conclusion
The imminent threat of another devastating earthquake provides a sound pretext forbuilding upgrading projects in Istanbul. Yet despite an official objective of improvingthe housing condition of the urban poor, state-led urban renewal projects have displacedthousands. Unlike the previous era of informal urbanization and grassroots strugglesagainst evictions, urban renewal today goes beyond “straightforward” dispossession, asit often seeks to incorporate residents into urban renewal projects through “affordable”payment schemes and the promise of increased property values. As I have argued, thiscomplicates grassroots resistance against urban renewal, which makes it difficult toanalyze the situation in terms of the familiar classifications of urban social movementliterature. Roy’s (2009) “politics of compensation” as “a modality of inclusion” is a usefulanalytic tool for addressing contestations that do not always suggest noncapitalist urbanfutures. Local associations and NGOs that lead the fight against urban renewal in Istanbulfind themselves navigating the often-conflicting goals of rejecting urban renewal andnegotiating the terms of resettlement, which is usually the result despite grassroots protest.How this conflict plays out is decisive in the overall outcome. Additionally, grassrootsresistance is complicated by the fact that TOKI has applied different terms in eachneighborhood partially in response to local dynamics. While tenants in Sulukule wereoffered off-site relocation through a homeownership program, tenants in Başıbüyük wereoffered no form of compensation.
Neither project has come to a definitive conclusion. Nonetheless, I draw somepreliminary conclusions regarding the dynamics of grassroots neighborhood mobilization.In both neighborhoods the level of community participation in the local association andthe ability to garner extra-local support proved vital for a sustained opposition movement.Sulukule received more extra-local support, largely due to its ability to make a moralclaim to a collectively produced neighborhood life and to emphasize the simultaneouslycultural and economic aspects of residents’ dispossession. Başıbüyük, however, waseasily dismissed by the citizens at large as a neighborhood of “illegal occupants” anddid not garner widespread popular support. Yet despite this setback, Başıbüyük was betterequipped to carry out negotiations with the state and grassroots participation in the localassociation—at least initially—was strong.
Largely due to popular mobilizations, both renewal projects were significantlydelayed; they have been in process for over six years. Meanwhile the government hastaken additional steps to facilitate urban renewal. In 2011, the JDP administration
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introduced the “Ministry of Urbanism and Environment” and appointed ErdoğanBayraktar, then head of the TOKI, as the minister; in May 2012, the JDP administrationpassed controversial legislation entitled the “Law Regarding the Transformation of AreasUnder Risk of Disaster,” which grants wide-ranging expropriation powers to the newlyfounded ministry, severely limiting the possibility of property rights-based appeals. Thenew legal framework will likely prompt new tactics on the part of the grassroots move-ments and their negotiation strategies. The extent to which these neighborhood basedmovements will be able to speak to anti-authoritarian, and anti-capitalist political senti-ments that have become increasingly visible in the wake of the massive urban-basedprotests of the 2013 summer is to be seen.
AcknowledgementsI am grateful to Vinay Gidwani, Helga Leitner, Eric Sheppard, John Archer, Ilona Moore, SinanErensü, Tolga Islam, Ebru Soytemel, and the anonymous Urban Geography reviewers for theirvaluable comments and criticism on earlier versions of this article.
FundingThe research for this article was made possible by a Social Science Research Council (SSRC)International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF). I also benefited from an InterdisciplinaryDoctoral Fellowship (IDF) at the University of Minnesota and funding from Andrew W. Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Early Career Fellowship program during thewriting and editing stages of the article.
Notes1. In his address at the local municipal assembly, then district mayor Fikri Köse, who initiated the
renewal project in Başıbüyük, clearly indicated that what made the area suitable for urbanrenewal was its low density. For full quotation see Karaman (2013a, p. 726).
2. In Istanbul the overall illiteracy rate is 8%.3. The difference between these two figures is due to differences in location and the density and
quality of construction. In centrally-located Sulukule the renewal project comprises 3 and 4-story homes, whereas in peripherally-located Başıbüyük the newly constructed apartmenttowers are 13 stories high.
4. See also Kuyucu and Ünsal (2010, pp. 14–15).5. But these networks are not exhaustive. Despite the increasing appeal of Islamic politics in poor
gecekondu settlements over the past three decades, some neighborhoods remain leftist strong-holds. See Lovering and Türkmen (2011) for their comparison of grassroots mobilizationagainst renewal projects in Başıbüyük, a stronghold of the Islamic party, and Gülsuyu, one ofthe few gecekondu neighborhoods where leftist/revolutionary politics remains significant.
6. The TTB is a state-issued document that grants the occupant the right to inhabit the space. It isnot a formal title deed, yet it entitles the document holder to legal ownership conditional on theimplementation of a “cadastral plan” and a subsequent “improvement plan” (imar islah plani)by the local municipality. For a more detailed discussion of differences in residents’ responseswith respect to their legal tenure status, see Kuyucu and Ünsal (2010).
7. The landowner’s share is a function of the land price. In Istanbul some locations command upto 70% share. In Başıbüyük it is around 50%.
8. All quotations in this section are drawn from notes taken during my fieldwork in Istanbul. Allnames are pseudonyms.
9. I should add, however, that when I talked to Hadi a second time in 2012, he had extremedifficulties paying the constantly increasing monthly installments, and was very agitatedagainst the Municipality. Like Hadi, many of the small number of Sulukuleans who partici-pated in the project are currently in significant distress (İnce, 2013a, 2013b).
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10. Maltepe Başıbüyük Doğayı ve Çevreyi Koruma ve Güzelleştirme Derneği [Maltepe BaşıbüyükAssociation for the Protection and Beautification of Nature and Environment].
11. The situation worsened when Halil was elected to the municipal assembly in the 2009elections. Many people accused him of using the struggle for personal gain. The associationhas lost much of its representative power since then.
12. Sulukule Roman Kültürünü Geliştirme ve Dayanışma Derneği [Sulukule Association for thePromotion of Roma Culture and Solidarity].
13. Data on demographics of Sulukule are a point of contention. According to the municipality’ssurvey, the total population of the renewal area is 3430, 17 per cent of which is of Romadescent. The Sulukule Platform on the other hand claims that the population is around 5000;and 3500 (70 per cent) of those are of Roma descent. For a discussion of hesitation of Gypsiesin Turkey to assume ethnic identities as Gypsies, see Karlıdağ and Marsh (2008) andSomersan (2007).
14. Like Murat, many residents associate Roma culture with entertainment houses and the latterwith “immorality” and prostitution. However Şükrü Pündük claims that prostitution began as aresult of increasing destitution only after the forced closure of the entertainment houses in the1990s.
15. A type of street snack.16. As Chatterjee (2004, p. 57) argues, “a crucial part of the politics of the governed” is “to give to
the empirical form of a population group the moral attributes of a community.” In many casesthis involves the construction of a sense of “shared kinship” from scratch. Also see Skuse andCousings (2007) for their discussion of the significance of creating the “idea” of the neighbor-hood as a community, with the example of successful assertion of a claim to formality andpermanence in an informal settlement on the outskirts of Cape Town.
17. This is not to deny that Başıbüyük (like many old gecekondu neighborhoods) has similarelements of street life, but they are not as prominent as they were in Sulukule.
18. For a discussion of this individualizing aspect of urban renewal see Karaman (2013).19. Hence the “injustice of spatiality” (Dikeç, 2001).
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