Right to the city as an urban utopia ?
Urban Protests Against Neoliberal Urban
Planning in Istanbul
Gülçin ERDI LELANDAIS
CNRS Research Fellow, University of Tours
Presentation of the Research and the Methodology
• Research undertaken between 2010-2012
• Aim of the project :
-Questioning the role of space and identity in
resistances against public-planning
-Studying the nature of urban planning and its
effects on urban dwellers
-Interrogating if these resistances give rise to the
new forms of citizenship
-Interrogating the links between the claims in the
neighbourhoods and the « right to the city »
Colloque Engagements et tensions autour de la rénovation urbaine, 25-26 Janvier, Paris
Case Studies
Sulukule
1 mayis
Colloque Engagements et tensions autour de la rénovation urbaine, 25-26 Janvier, Paris
Fieldwork : Sulukule and 1 Mayis Neighbourhoods in Istanbul
1 Mayis
Sulukule
Evolution of Urban Transformation in Turkey
from 2000
• Milestone in urban policies : 2002 and AKP’s arrival
• Institutionalisation and consolidation of Neoliberal Urban
Regime
• Massive Destruction of Gecekondus and Struggle Against
Illegal Housing
• Emergence of TOKI (Institution of Collective Housing) as a
main political actor in urban policies
• AKP practices neoliberal rules without concession;
• Progressive privatisation of housing sector
Following...
• Changing the structure of TOKI by law in 2003 : permission to
build beneficial housing consortiums with private firms;
• Right to conceive and to realise urban transformation projects
for municipalities;
• Several laws in order to consolidate neoliberal urban order
(2004 : construction of a shantytown considered a crime,
2006 : Mortgage Law, 2003-2008 : Accession to property for
foreigners).
• Privatisation of public land properties;
• Decentralisation of industry in urban space;
• Worker / lower middle class housing in
peripheral areas;
• Targeting city centres for luxury constructions;
• Growth of Construction Sector (CS) and gross
national product (GNP) :
2001 (economic crisis): CS -17,4 % ; GNP -5,7%
2002 : CS 13,9% ; GNP 6,2%
Résistances against urban planning
• Two main characteristics of these projects :
- profit priorities
- authoritarian
- directed in poor, minority-concentrated
neighbourhoods
• This situation provokes reaction in some neighbourhoods
• Especially minorities having the feeling to be denied and oppressed
since the foundation of the republic are raised against these
projects to protect their place of dwelling considered as the only
place of expression of their ethnic and cultural identity
• So the city becomes the space for new forms of expression and an
insurgent citizenship emerging against established rules of political
and societal system.
Reclaim the right to the city ?
• How to define the right to the city ?
- a concept which could not be reduced to a right of
housing
-Henri Lefebvre (1968): a mode of being for all city
residents.
“The promotion of equal access for all to the potential
benefits of the city, the democratic participation of all
inhabitants by decision-making processes, and the
realization of inhabitants’ fundamental rights and
liberties”.
- reworking the social construction of urban space
-opposition to the conception of capitalist urbanization
Right to the city as a mobilization tool
• Right to the city as a slogan, an “agenda for the
mobilization against neoliberalization” (Purcell 2008)
• Right to the city as an unifying element for urban
social movements
• Multiplicity of perceptions of right to the city
• Right to the city as an alternative urban project and
conception against urban policies of the government
Perception of actors
• Two main understanding :
- against the exclusion from decision-making processes on the
use of space, led by the exchange value, as the right to modify
and shape their living spaces and the city, based on their ideas
and needs.
- against their spatial eviction and social expulsion from the
“centre” of the city; they refuse to leave their central urban
spaces for new social houses which will be built outside
Istanbul
Çiğdem from Fener-Balat and Urban Movements:
“The right to the city has a different meaning for me. But for the
neighbourhood may be different. As Harvey said, it is the right to
build our own city by building oneself, ourselves. In fact, we
produce; build ourselves according to the amenities, possibilities
around us. If in our city, these are not offered freely to me, but
according to my money, to class, this means that obstacle and limits
are set down upon me. In that sense, human being must have the
right to say his opinion about how his/her living milieu is being
shaped since this transformed city will shape him/her. If
man/woman is shaped by shaping his/her city, is formed by forming
it, he/she must participate in decision-making processes, to be
asked about the formation of his/her city, he/she must be able to
contribute in it, so in the formation of the right to the city, we must
have the right of decision and to say our own words. It is a crucial
right since this city at the same time will shape me.” (Interview
made by Basak Ergin with Çiğdem, April 2012, Istanbul)
Erbatur from Solidarity Studio:
“The right to the city is a revolutionary right, not a
mere right of dwelling; right to access to centrality or
to the urban services. It must be elaborated as
related to the use-value of space with a democratic
urban imagination. Urban struggle must aim the right
to the city, targeting a more democratic, just city
based on the use value.”(Interview made by Basak
Ergin with Erbatur Çavuşoğlu, April 2012, Istanbul).
Whose right to the city and how ?
• An empty concept ?
• Develop an alternative project
• Finding the realisation mecanisms of right to
the city
• Role of inhabitants and professional activists
THANK YOU !
gulcin.lelandais@univ-tours.fr