Remarks by
AlI Müfit GÜRTUNA
Lord Mayor of Istanbul Turkey
President of IULA-EMME:
Vice-President of IULA
His Excellency Secretary General Kofi Annan,
Dear colleagues,
Dear friends of local government,
As the Mayor of the host city for the Habitat II Conference and also for the fırst
convocation of the World Assembly of Cities and Local Authorities in 1996, I am very
much honored to be here with you, on the occasion of the Social Session of the United
Nations General Assembly. I would like to thank the distinguished organizers of this
event, which gave Local Authorities an opportunity to take part in the Special Session
of the United Nations and to represent our cities before the United Nations. With this
meeting, the tact that Local Authorities are considered as serious partners in the
United Nations body has become a world kno~ and accepted fact.
After Habitat II Conference, there were general changes in approaches to the local
Authorities. Local authorities were formally accepted by Governments as
indispensable partners in addressing the problems of providing adequate shelter and
basic services for all and promoting sustainable development in an urbanizing world
Elnd, in the Istanbul Declaration, governments rightfully recognized the local
authorities as their “closest and essential partners” in the implementation of the Habitat
Agenda. Governments by accepting the Habitat Agenda have promised to strengthen
Local Authorities by supplying them with more power and source.
The 21st century will be an urban era. In this century, more than half of the world's
population will be living in cities in the concept of modernization, not only technologies
and systems but also our administration systems must be changed as well.
Decentralization and subsidiary subjects must be given the importance they deserve
and must be implemented in all aspects of our lives. We, as the Local Administrators,
are demanding more power, more authority and more responsibility. Because, we are
in the capacity of moving the challenges that are faced by city dwellers with whom we
are in direct contact and therefore, we can solve those problems in the most
appropriate way.
As the mayor of a city with a population of twelve million, I am aware of the many
problems that our cities are facing today. Protection of the environment, poverty
eradication, reduction of unemployment, rehabilitation of the street children and
providing them adequate shelter, access to information and technology and
communication are some of the challenges, which are awaiting to be met. As Local
Authorities, we are giving our best efforts to tackle these issues and are producing
projects with this purpose. But I am confident that, the basic factor of solving these
problems is to realize administrative reforms at Local Authorities.
In this concept I request from The United Nations;
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Follow up with the implementation of the decisions, which are results of this
meeting.
To promote governments to make necessary regulations related to Local
Authorities.
United Nations Agencies and particularly the Habitat Monitoring Committee to
be in full connection and cooperation with Local Authorities.
Moreover, to finalize activities on opening a Habitat Regional Office, in
negotiations since 1996 in Istanbul as soon as possible
Before ending my words, I hope this meeting will contribute to develop modern, secure
and livable cities, which are desired by all of us and the challenges that we meet today
will no longer exist at the 2006 Istanbul+10 Review Conference
Thank you for your kind attention.
The speech of Mr. AIi Müfit GÜRTUNA Lord Mayor of Istanbul, at the parallel
event by Metropolis ''the challenges of metropolises in the new millenium poverty and health'' in New York, June 7, 2001.
Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentleman.
The urban population is increasing rapidly. The medium and long-term forecasts
indicate that 2/3 of the world population will live in cities in the next century. This
consequently, emphasizes the importance of the cities, urban rights and urban
administrations.
In this Round table, we will be pointing out similar problems in various cities and will be
searching for different solutions in a rational manner. This meeting also, will be very
useful in improving our brainstorming skills as we search for solutions to urban
problems.
Urbanization reality is one of the important facts that will effect and shape globalization
process. Our world is going to turn into an urban world in the near future.
Even though, third world is moving towards the cities, the developed countries are
moving to the suburban areas. Twenty-five years ago, 40% of the world's population
lived in the cities. This ratio has changed to 50% in the year 2000. It is projected that
2/3 of the world's population will live in cities in year 2025. There is no doubt that next
period will be city civilization era.
The development in information technologies rapidly lessens the attractiveness of the
crowded settlements. In the near future the population increase rate will slow down in
big cities. Moreover, near by surroundings and suburban areas of cities will develop.
Enterprises will start to prefer to establish their headquarters in other settlement areas
rather than big cities. Therefore, big cities will lose their stanıs** as attraction centers.
Turkey exceeded the half way point of the urbanization process, but Turkey paid an
enormous price to achieve that. I strongly believe in international cooperation and
solidarity concerning the issues of urbanization, local governments and sustainable
urban development, which will be started today.
Istanbul has a different kind of an experience. Unauthorized constructions and
detrimental urbanization, which started in 1950's, are the source of many problems
that we are facing today.
In the last fifty years, a great number of people have migrated to Istanbul because of
its industrial and business potential. 1950 was the beginning of this mass migration.
Conditions of that period, unfortunately, did not permit the creation and implementation
of the social programs necessary to control the population increase, which came along
with industrialization. In that period, the masses that migrated to Istanbul with high
hopes started to try to solve their problems by informal mechanisms.
With the important transformation Projects that we have prepared, we not only foresee
a change in the contour of Istanbul but the whole country. Our goal is to transform
Istanbul into a well-balanced in 25 years. Hence, we want to approach the whole city
concept, by using regional planning from housing to transportation, from natural
environment to historical structure with a new determined and change driven attitude.
Recently, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality implemented its re-organizing program to
increase efficiency in public services.
Our Municipality, besides its technical services from the city, supports the social
texture and provides variety of social services. Many of our social services; from
students to the homeless, from people who want to obtain professional skills to
consumers, target the different parts and needs of the society and being the first
practices in our country, draws good examples for many municipalities.
Historical pavilions and municipal social facilities, which are located at the most
beautiful places of our city, are given to the service of the public; scholarships for the
students; free professional development programs; a nursing home for the elderly,
which was recently opened; special care for disabled people and street children, are
the natural results of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality's social municipal
understanding.
Services and investments towards the city and city-dwellers health are the main
priorities of our governance.
A Disabled Co-ordination Center was established to reach out the disabled citizens
making up 10% of the Istanbul's population.
Istanbul, whose population is increasing rapidly by the domestic and external
immigration has a share of 14.8% in Turkey's total household.
Annual housing needs, which are brought by the increasing population, are extra
80.000 units. The number of registered housing units in Istanbul is 1.200.000.
Currently, number of households in unfit housing is 600.000.
New settlement areas are being opened by implementing modern housing projects
while preventing the development of new slums and rehabiIitating existing slums in the
city. We are showing a great effort to transform unfit settlement into modern suitable
settlements.
Ladies and Gentlemen
Social cohesion is strongly threatened by poverty, which will be one of the most
challenging problems of this century. The gap between the poor and the rich continues
to widen. The prosperity ratio of the poor and the rich countries was 1/3 in 1820 but in
the beginning of the century this ratio changed to 1/11. The ratio has widened to a
huge gap of 1/800 between the poor and the rich countries at the end of the century.
These figures show that globalization brought injustice to the distribution of the world
wealth. It is also a known fact that nations with high levels of education and, who are
investing in information technologies, benefit the most from globalization.
This period of transition brings many risks as well as many opportunities. The report
what is called ''State of The World'' and published by World Watch institute in January
1993, points out that our prosperity depends on building a globalized economy and the
political decisions that we make in the next ten years will be very important.
Poverty, which is one of the major problems in the world, is an important matter in our
agenda.
The unjust income distribution opens big gaps between the different society levels in
both economical and a cultural sense.
41.9% of the households in Turkey have income under $150 a month. 2.8% of the
households 8 have income over $1.000 a month; 7.9% have income between $500$1.000 a month; 14.4% is in middle class and 33.1 is in low middle class.
Unfortunately, 75% of the people living in our country are in low-income category.
While the gap between the rich and the poor widens, the increasing poverty rate,
which is stemming from an economical problem, is turning into a social- physiological
problem. Food supply expenses increased 40.4% in our country and necessary
expenses per month for a four-person family increased to $500 in one year.
1 wanted to give these figures in order to emphasize the importance of the social
activities that are performed by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, which I am sure
also fit into many other cities' characteristics.
This reality which threatens the other metropolises that are facing similar problems,
can have local governments perform necessary activities which are very important but
I beIieve that these activities consequently are not very effective.
For the definite soIution, globalization process needs to be re-considered after looking
at the social effects and the international community should take the necessary steps
to prevent unjust income distribution.
In the 20th century, national-state was experienced and social-state concept came
forward with that thought. Nowadays, this concept is experienced with urbanization
and globaIization. We, as the local authorities should provide just income distribution
in our cities and therefore we can be able to form cities where poverty is decreasing.
Furthermore, we must have social-globalization concept become widespread through
out the world.
Thank you for your attention.