Orhan Esen
Learning from İstanbul
The city of İstanbul: Material production and production of the discourse

A provisional appraisal: Stock-taking 2004

Building up and urban regeneration, self-service
The essence of İstanbul's urbanization after 1945 / 50 appears to be an urban production and regeneration which, born out of necessity, was built on own resources despite of remarkable deficits in the area of public investment: without promotional funds, social engineers, state control, or (at first) involvement of big business. The urban re-compaction by yapsat is an essential feature of the İstanbul model, the motor of an unplanned, small-scale capitalist modernization from the bottom.

The "self-service urbanization" with many actors permitted the development of socio-economic and political buffer, cushion and integration mechanisms to cope with the otherwise hard-to-digest, huge impacts of massive immigration. İstanbul came to be a place where millions of poor farmers made their dream come true of advancing to the middle classes within the space of two generations and without too many sacrifices.
Here, the international goal of the 'Habitat' movement to provide secure housing for all, secure tenure, had little relevance as there was no quantitative problem of homelessness due to the broad spectrum of production forms (5) - and any relevance it did have referred to the quality of housing and residential ambiences.

The early acceptance of informal modes of settlement merely reflected the preference of Turkish state pragmatism. This policy appears to have paid off for the establishment: In applying a strategy building on small tenure, politicians provided sustained aid for a fairly conservative political clientele, as is evident in election results. The post-gecekondu became a stronghold of liberal-conservative politicians leaning to the right, irrespective of which party was working this field at a given time.

Notwithstanding the segregation and exclusion processes which are in stark contrast with İstanbul's own past, today's urban community - seen in a global context - still has a certain degree of solidarity and homogeneity. The petty crime problem normally affecting big cities - in terms of civil safety in public space - has never been an issue, although there was some increase in the nineties.
All this has given rise to a canon of legends which is spreading across the borders, in a time of globalization attracting droves of transnational migrants from the historic Black Sea hinterland (Balkan, Eastern Europe and Russia, Caucasus) and, meanwhile, also from the Near East (Iraq, Iran), sub-Saharan Africa and Central and East Asia. This is a relatively recent trend, and İstanbul still has to find ways to cope with it on a societal and, above all, institutional scale.

Post-gecekondu and urban structural change: Strategies of economic adjustment
The 1999 earthquake and the deep recession of 2001-02 intensified the reverse migration from the city and brought the building sector to a standstill which still persists. Moreover, as real estate prices fell, the quantitative overproduction of living space of past decades took effect.
With the transition to the post-gecekondu, the real estate price of the gecekondus came to the fore. The land values of quarters which meanwhile belonged to the inner city increased, and so did the value of industrial sites surrounded by gecekondus. Production at these sites was already too expensive; also, they were unable to meet the growing spatial requirements. The end of "import substitution" (<.> Sönmez) spelt trouble for specific businesses, and they had to discontinue their operations.

This trend was reflected in new design schemes for a de-industrialized city focussing on trade, services, education and tourism. Inner-city industrial areas were declared conversion zones. Partial implementation began in the nineties: Factories in Maslak made way for bold office towers. The locals from Çelik-, Gül- and Seyrantepe now had no choice but to enlist in a team of cleaners, drivers or security. In the Kağıthane valley, at the Golden Horn and near Zeytinburnu, expansive areas were chosen for demolition. Industrial halls that remained standing or were "protected" by way of full-scale demolition followed by reconstruction, such as the former Fes factory, the 'Silahtarağa power plant' or the 'Sütlüce slaughterhouses', may be subject to new-use plans targeting a clientele from the north of İstanbul. In Zeytinburnu two shut-down production halls were converted into a shopping centre. The former workers of this de-industrialized district are to become the customers of their former bosses. Is there any chance that this is going to work?

According to a recent study (6) comparing the employment profiles in the metropolitan area in 1990 and 2000, employment in industries, the building sector and informal / non-specifiable occupations dropped by five per cent in these ten years, whilst "İstanbul was undergoing a major structural change". The space-specific analysis shows that the division into a Central Business District and a peripheral zone was beginning to become invalid, and that many economic activities previously linked to the centre were now expanding into the peripheral areas. Especially in regions critically affected by the second wave of land-taking, employment profiles dominated by the building sector were re-adjusted towards new areas, such as transport, trade, services, industry and corporate services.

The slow spreading of structures economically typical of central urban areas into the post-gecekondu is for instance evident in the fact that the latter becomes a destination of transnational immigration. Well-connected migrants have a preference for post-gecekondu sites in inner-city slums such as Tarlabasi or Dolapdere, as is shown by the settlement of Afghans in Zeytinburnu (<.> İdemen / Hibbeler) and Moldavians in Çeliktepe (<.> Enhoş).

Overall, the post-gecekondu was able to survive and adjust to serious crises and economic changes. But the story of the "most recent small actors", to whom their meanwhile relatively wealthy predecessors have "passed on" the poverty (<.> Işık / Pınarcıoğlu), has an open ending. In the case of continued inflationary urban growth, they might have a chance to work their way up on the backs of their successors. But given the consolidation of urban contours which is in the making in the first decade of the 21st century, it is rather doubtful whether the wheel of fortune keeps turning their way. A new social policy is needed, but there is nobody in sight who could implement it. The left wing, dwindling and limited to the educated middle classes, wears itself out in identity-finding debates or exclusive environmental or local policies. With the last mayor election in March 2004 the Islamists appear to have shifted a city's immanent dual awareness (<.> Tugal) in favour of an established, consolidated urban community. The former gecekondu signals its agreement, having sealed itself off under the hegemony of the middle class: The boat is full. Bad luck on the late-comers.

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