An alternative to revitalise Sulukule as a Neighbourhood

International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning, 2011

This paper evaluates the fi rst local government-led neighborhood regeneration project in central Istanbul with reference to its neighborhood impact and its wider implications for the future of regeneration in the city. From a perspective rooted in historical and international comparative planning studies, the research methodology is elaborated through an analysis of the evolution of a generic model of contemporary sustainable urban regeneration that provides the analytical framework for the evaluation. A review of the emergence of regeneration in Istanbul since the early 2000s establishes the context and rationale for the Sulukule case study. The paper then presents an analysis of events which led to the total demolition of the historic Sulukule neighborhood and the destruction of its Roma community. These events fl owed from the authoritarian implementation of the Sulukule Renewal Area Plan, despite the efforts of civil society organizations to secure the development and implementation of a community-based alternative plan. The neighborhood level evaluation explains why the redevelopment of Sulukule should be understood as planned gentrifi cation. Evaluation on a wider front is necessary because Sulukule has become the cause celebre in a vigorous debate about the purpose, scope, and outcomes of regeneration, which centers on the question 'whose Historic Peninsula?'. Many argue that regeneration should be stopped, as it inevitably means planned gentrifi cation. But others, including the authors, draw on international experience to argue for the development of an Istanbul/Turkish version of sustainable, conservation-led, and community-based neighborhood regeneration. More widely still, the Sulukule experience has fuelled growing opposition to regeneration per se, epitomized in the slogan 'no Sulukule here'. Thus the paper concludes by outlining the action needed to move toward sustainable regeneration, not only for the city's central historic neighborhoods, but also for the far more numerous poor and deteriorating 20 th century neighborhoods where the threat is not from gentrifi cation, but from the next earthquake. Keywords: evaluation and earthquake threat, gentrifi cation, Istanbul, renewal area, Sulukule, urban and neighborhood regeneration, urban conservation. '… an assessment, as systematic and objective as possible, of an ongoing or completed project, programme or policy, its design, implementation and results. The aim is to determine the relevance and fulfi lment of objectives, developmental effi ciency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. An evaluation should provide information that is credible and useful, enabling the incorporation of lessons learned into the decision-making process …' (OECD / DAC [4]). The research data have been derived from the application of a combination of research techniques. In our desk-based research, a survey of the academic and professional literature, together with an

Istanbul Version 2.0 | The Struggle Between Modernisation and Historical Heritage: The Case of Sulukule, 2013

In this brief report we would like to evaluate the arguments put forward by Fatih Municipality, echoed by the 2009 Progress Report 'Historic Areas of İstanbul' by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (REPORT), for intervening in the Sulukule area with an Urban Renewal project (PROJECT). Our aim is to draw attention to how the stated objectives of the Sulukule Urban Renewal Project are not being met. On the contrary, what we see happening is that the PROJECT is having detrimental impact on the residents, and on both the tangible and intangible heritage of the area. The stated aims of the Sulukule Urban Renewal Project (as reiterated in the REPORT) are given as follows: • improve living quality of inhabitants, • adopt conservation of world heritage and living culture as a leading principle and goal, • prevent physical decay with providing sustainability for historical pattern and distinctive identity of city, • recover of economic life, • increase living quality and activation of cultural dynamics, • ensuring participation, • support socio-cultural development, • integrate district and inhabitants to the whole city and citizens, • attain modern, habitable, sustainable places integrated with history and culture. We have grouped these aims under 4 headings and have examined the impact of the PROJECT in terms of whether these state aims are being achieved.

Tourism-led regeneration is one of the most significant agenda items of Istanbul where lively and serious discussions on urban regeneration workings still continue to a great extent. Within the scope of such tourism-led urban regeneration efforts applied, in the District of Fatih, the Neslişah and Hatice Sultan Quarters known by the public under the name Sulukule where mostly Romany citizens are living were designated as a "Redevelopment Area" in 2005. Applications started to be implemented without providing any applicable 'participation models' for the involvement of the affected parties, which brought along a lot of conceptual and theoretical discussions as well as urban strains. On the other hand, the works also relate to events to be organized on selection and designation of Istanbul as one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2010 and are still going on rapidly.

Urban regeneration projects have become a focus of attention in Istanbul due to tourism promotion, particularly great expectations from the European Capital of Culture 2010 Event. Sulukule, a Romani neighborhood on the historical peninsula of Istanbul, was designated as an urban redevelopment zone. The Sulukule Urban Regeneration Project is one of the recent efforts to present “a better urban environment” to foreign visitors and investors. The project has accelerated the struggle for land, causing dispossessions, evictions and demolitions. Locals’ needs and rights are denied. Consequently, the citizens in Sulukule started to oppose regeneration and formed an urban social movement. This paper attempts to analyze the urban social movement in Sulukule, the Sulukule Platform, which emerged as an urban coalition challenging tourism-led regeneration.► Urban regeneration in Sulukule, Istanbul caused demolitions and evictions. ► Citizens formed an urban coalition, the Sulukule Platform, to defend their rights. ► The Sulukule Platform failed in physical preservation of the neighborhood. ► Ambiguous property rights, lack of wide support, strong opposition and fragmentation among locals contributed to this failure. ► The Sulukule Platform continues to struggle for return of Romani dwellers to Sulukule.

MCP Gradute Thesis, DAAP, University of Cincinnati, OH, USA, 2014

""Sulukule was one of the most famous neighborhoods in Istanbul because of the Romani culture and historic identity. In 2006, the Fatih Municipality knocked on the residents’ doors with an urban renovation project. The community really did not know how they could retain their residence in the neighborhood; unfortunately everybody knew that they would not prosper in another place without their community connections. They were poor and had many issues impeding their livelihoods, but there should have been another solution that did not involve eviction. People, associations, different volunteer groups, universities in Istanbul, and also some trade associations were supporting the people of Sulukule. The Sulukule Platform was founded as this predicament began and fought against government eviction for years. In 2009, the area was totally destroyed, although the community did everything possible to save their neighborhood through the support of the Sulukule Platform. I cannot say that they lost everything in this process, but I also cannot say that anything was won. I can only say that the Fatih Municipality soiled its hands. No one will forget Sulukule, but everybody will remember the Fatih Municipality with this unsuccessful project. Sulukule stands out as a symbolic case for social justice groups that promote the expansion of civil rights and defend neighborhoods that struggle for their rights. Therefore, the Sulukule Platform shows that another form of transformation which involves public participation in the decision-making phase of planning is possible in the cities. This study aims to demonstrate how the advocacy planning method is significant in planning for communities. This thesis proposes to present a full report of the Sulukule Platform case. It also provides a historical background that works to contextualize Sulukule and their struggle into the broader context of socio-economic inequalities in Istanbul and the fight of inhabitants in urban transformation areas for their civil rights. The study focuses on one of the less experimented planning models, advocacy planning, and analyzes its first incidence in Turkey through the Sulukule Platform. Also it examines public participation and its place in the urban planning profession. This thesis, first, will help to show how Turkish public officials failed to learn from the mistakes of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s; second, it will look at how the urban renewal is being implemented in developing countries especially in Turkey. I will argue that because globalizing-cities like Istanbul are being pressured to implement urban renewal but are often failing to learn lessons from American and European urban renewal.""

2007

Following the fall of the socialist bloc in the early 1990s, as a decade of upheaval of the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed awaited the Roma in Eastern and Central Europe, their historic counterparts in Sulukule, !stanbul, were faced with the grim prospect of long-term unemployment due to the closing of their famous Entertainment Houses (E"lence Evleri) by the Metropolitan Municipality. Nearly two decades later, still struggling with the results of that uncalled for and disastrous event – which led to almost universal unemployment, poverty, undernourishment, and the de-education of the children in the area – the Sulukule Roma now have to prepare for a second major calamity, coming again from the Municipality, which intends to throw them out of the ancestral homes they have lived in over the centuries.

Bu makalede İstanbul Sulukule'de 2005 yılında başlatılan Kentsel Dönüşüm Projesi, Romanların tarihsel süreç içerisinde yaşadıkları diğer kırılma noktaları da (İstanbul'a göç etmeleri ve yerleşik hayata geçmeleri) ele alınarak neden sonuç ilişkisinde incelenmiştir. Ayrıca, Sulukule Romanlarının toplumsal yaşantıları incelenmiş olup, soylulaştırmanın ardından Taşoluk'a giden Romanlarda oluşan etkiler gözlemlenerek, belirtilmiştir. Tüm süreç boyunca yaşanan mağduriyetler, medyaya yansıyan haberler, Sulukule ve Taşoluk'ta yapılan görüşmeler sonucunda Romanların içinde bulundukları durum yabancılaşma kavramı üzerinde tartışılmıştır.

megaron, 2018

İlkim MARKOÇ, Candan ÇINAR Kentsel dönüşüm en çok gecekondu alanlarında gerçekleşmektedir. Bu süreçten en çok etkilenen grup ise gecekondululardır. Kentsel dönüşüm projeleri, mahallenin sosyal dokusunda değişime sebep olmasından dolayı pek çok sorunu beraberinde getirmektedir. Bu makalenin amacı, İstanbul'da bir dönüşüm alanı olan Sarıgöl'deki süreçte ortaya çıkan sorunları aidiyet kaybı, yerinden edilme ve sosyal dışlanma kavramları bağlamında ele almaktır. Bir çok çalışmaya göre sosyal dışlanma, aidiyet duygusu kaybı ve yerinden edilme süreçleri ile beraber gelişmektedir. Kentsel dönüşüm süreciyle birlikte farklı sosyo-kültürel ve ekonomik sınıflardan kişiler sosyal entegrasyon sağlanamadan bir arada yaşamak durumunda kalmaktadır. Alan çalışması için seçilmiş olan Sarıgöl, 1950'lerde yapılaşmanın başladığı bir gecekondu yerleşimidir ve günümüzde de Sarıgöl'de kentsel dönüşüm tüm hızıyla devam etmektedir. Alan araştırmasında derinlemesine görüşmeler yapılarak, değişen sosyal dinamik-lerin analizi mahallelinin bu üç kavram için ifadeleri doğrultusunda gerçekleştirilmiştir. Kentsel dönüşüm sürecinin toplumdaki olumsuz etkile-rinin azaltılabilmesi için mahallenin sadece fiziksel değil sosyal dokusu için de yenilikçi çözüm önerileri sunulmalıdır. Yeni gelenlerin mahalleye aidiyet duymalarını, kalanların ise sosyo-kültürel ve ekonomik farklılıkları aşmasını sağlayacak sosyal bağların kurulması ile sosyal ve ekonomik entegrasyon sağlanmalıdır. Anahtar sözcükler: Yerinden edilme; mahalle; Sarıgöl; aidiyet; sosyal dışlanma; kentsel dönüşüm. ÖZ Urban redevelopment primarily occurs in shantytowns and the squatters are the most affected by it. The redevelopment projects can potentially lead to countless problems within the neighborhood due to the spill-over effect it has on the social fabric of a community. The main objective of this article is to analyze one of the redevelopment site, Sarigol, in Istanbul and three of those problems caused by the urban redevelopment: loss of social belonging, displacement and social exclusion. According to numerous studies, the fundamental cause of social exclusion, regarded as loss of the sense of belonging and physical displacement, is that prior to urban redevelopment, the members of various socio-cultural and economic social classes were living together without any social integration. The town of Sarigol, which was chosen for fieldwork, was established as a shantytown in the 1950's and today, urban transformation continues there at full speed. In this research, in-depth interviews have been conducted in Sarigol and the effects of a changing social dynamic were analyzed with regard to residents' responses on urban redevelopment within the context of those concepts. To absorb the negative effects of the process, innovative changes have to be presented both for physical and social fabric of the neighborhood. In order to provide the social and economic integration, social bonds which allow new comers to gain their sense of belonging and enable stabiles to overcome their socio-cultural and economic differences have to be built.

Tourism-led regeneration is one of the most significant agenda items of Istanbul where lively and serious discussions on urban regeneration workings still continue to a great extent. Within the scope of such tourism-led urban regeneration efforts applied, in the District of Fatih, the Neslişah and Hatice Sultan Quarters known by the public under the name Sulukule where mostly Romany citizens are living were designated as a "Redevelopment Area" in 2005. Applications started to be implemented without providing any applicable 'participation models' for the involvement of the affected parties, which brought along a lot of conceptual and theoretical discussions as well as urban strains. On the other hand, the works also relate to events to be organized on selection and designation of Istanbul as one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2010 and are still going on rapidly.