The Great Failure: The Roles of Institutional Conflict and Social Movements in the Failure of Regeneration Initiatives in Istanbul

Abstract

Between 2004 and 2019, more than 30 areas in Istanbul have been earmarked as regeneration zones. But as of August 2019, only two projects are completed while the rest either never reached implementation stage or are stopped by courts, despite the right macroeconomic conditions and unflinching governmental will. Why? The answers lie in the ill-designed legal/institutional infrastructure behind urban regeneration, the conflictual relations between various stakeholders, and the effective utilization of the law by groups opposing the projects. The ill-designed policy generated serious legal uncertainties, institutional clashes, and lack of trust among stakeholders, which raised transaction costs and led to project failures. This has not, however, led the government toward reforming the policy to make it more rational. On the contrary, it has led to a more centralized and authoritarian policy framework. I demonstrate these arguments through an analysis of four failed projects in the city.

How to unravel pathbreaking trajectories in the left‐behind areas of Istanbul?

“…The Ministry declared the neighborhood as a 'risky area' under the Disaster Law (6306) in 2013. Therefore, the central government (in addition to property development actors, albeit indirectly) gained the authority to violate the property right of one-third of the property owners by 'urgent expropriation' (Kuyucu, 2022) as soon as the construction companies reached agreement with two-thirds of them. 9…”

“…Although this association consolidated through the left-socialist line, it was pacified with the 1980 military coup (Erbas ¸& Kızılay, 2015) and has contributed significantly to developing opposition culture in the neighborhood. This very early rooted solidarity move was followed by the establishment with the police to prevent house demolitions (Kuyucu, 2022). However, inhabitants' responses afterward morphed into a more institutionalized (though informal) approach.…”

Stakeholder Management in Government-Led Urban Regeneration: A Case Study of the Eastern Suburbs in Chengdu, China

“…In the case of urban renewal in Turkey, even though the macroeconomic conditions were good and the government was determined to the project, the project still failed because of the unreasonable design of the legal/institutional foundation and the conflicting relationship between different stakeholders. The author argued that the decisions must be made by the local government, which is more aware of the economic, social, and cultural dynamics within its jurisdiction [77]. In the case of urban renewal in Dubai, where the top-down planning model failed to capture the needs of low-income communities, the researchers argued that the state and developers should provide technical and financial assistance to urban residents facing eviction.…”

Post-conflict Urban Renewal as an Ethnocratic Regime Practice: Racialized Governance of Redevelopment in Diyarbakir, Turkey

“…Urban renewal, as a state-led gentrification agenda, has been a ubiquitous urban strategy that both central government and municipal authorities have pursued since the early 2000s in many cities across Turkey (Candan and Kolluoglu, 2008;Kuyucu and Ünsal, 2010;Karaman, 2013;Ay, 2019;Yardimci, 2020;Ay and Penpecioglu, 2022;Kuyucu, 2022). A determining characteristic of this nationwide urban redevelopment agenda is the market-based logic of neighborhood-scale demolition and reconstruction often in the form of public-private partnerships as a quintessential case of neoliberal urban restructuring in cities (Lovering and Türkmen, 2011;Demirtas-Milz, 2013;Lelandais, 2014;Unsal, 2015).…”