Redevelopment of the squatter settlement neighbourhoods in Ankara, Turkey

• Main Author: Akyuz, Sinan
• Other Authors: Crooker, Lee ; Goodfellow, Tom ; Gough, Jamie
• Published: University of Sheffield 2018
• Subjects: 307.76
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.766529

The aim of this thesis was to understand the enormous processes of building and rebuilding of housing in Turkey with strong state involvement, targeting squatter housing neighbourhoods, whilst also considering the effects of redevelopment processes on the residents of squatter settlements Ankara, Turkey. In order to understand the overall social, economic, and spatial change of the Turkish cities, three theoretical perspectives were used: urban, state, and built environment and housing theories. Most of the existing literature on squatter settlements' redevelopment examined the eviction of the inner city squatting settlement areas through gentrification theories. However, in the case of Ankara, thousands of hectares of squatter settlement neighbourhoods have been redeveloped since 1980s and gentrification theories account for only a small part of the phenomenon. Massive redevelopments have not always led to displacement and the current redevelopment projects cover 30 percent of the population and 40 percent of the existing city. Therefore, this thesis sought to fill a gap in the literature explaining squatter settlement redevelopment in Turkey. In addition, in many developing countries there have been similar levels of intervention to the urban space by different level of state agencies, and the current findings may also aid to understand redevelopments in developing countries A qualitative methodology was used, undertaking an extensive review of the academic literature, policy and official documents regarding three case studies selected. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 63 different actors involved in the redevelopment projects and 2 focus groups with gecekondu residents in each case study area. The findings of this research suggest that role of the governments in the neoliberal period since the 1980s has been conceptualized as purely disciplinary in terms of class relationships. However, in fact most governments implemented cooperative policies as well. The two key concepts in order to theorise the intervention to the urban space in the period of post 2000 are rescaling the state ii and financialisaiton of the built environment and housing. After 2000, the integration of housing credits and upward scaling of state intervention led to a dramatic increase in housing production. The findings of the Altindag and Mamak case studies showed that from the gecekoundu owners' perspective, the overall housing material quality increased. However, the redevelopments also created various difficulties for the owners and substantially changed their social and cultural lives. Moreover, gecekondu tenants have gained little from the redevelopments. Overall, these findings demonstrate that the role of the central state and city-wide municipalities in relation to the built environment has increased enormously since the 1980s in contrast with the downward scaling of the state as found in many European countries. This shows the importance of understanding state scaling in relation to the economy, society, urbanisation and politics of particular countries.