Urban Renewal Pits Istanbul Residents Against City Hall. Gecekondu - 1 | 2004. Istanbul sees history razed in the name of regeneration | World news. The Zorlu business centre, scheduled to open in 2013, is just one of many massive construction projects in Istanbul, Turkey. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty A few hundred metres from the bustling Taksim Square in Istanbul, the sound of jackhammers reverberates through the street: demolitions in the nearby neighbourhood of Tarlabasi are under way despite legal objections from residents, architects, and human rights groups. Empty buildings, many of which date from the late 19th century and are used to house a large part of Istanbul's former Greek population, have already been gutted, waiting for their turn.
In the area's main street, only the local barber and one cornershop still hang on. Tamer Bekar, a 70-year Tarlabasi resident, shakes his head in dismay. Up to 278 buildings will be demolished to make way for a high-end construction project that will include homes, offices, hotels and a shopping mall. "If you leave a city at the mercy of speculators, it will die. Istanbul’s Gecekondus | Articles. Since the 1980s, gecekondus have either been transformed into apartments or replaced by mass housing blocks.
Originally a technical term, gecekondu derived from everyday language to signify a specific housing and settlement typology of self-service urbanisation that occurred during Turkey’s industrialisation and rural migration in the period between 1945 and 1985. Gece means ‘the night’ and kondu ‘landed’, hence gecekondu translates as ‘landed at night’. The term has evolved to encompass a variety of informal settlements and building typologies. Its usage denotes a bottom-up, spontaneous action, especially prevalent during the first wave of mass-migration, to provide mass housing under conditions in which conventional or government-initiated models of housing supply failed.
In Istanbul, this act of land-taking was by no means legal, but was nonetheless sanctioned as it allowed the government to pass the costs and political hurdles of urbanisation on to the migrants themselves. Istanbul Urban Movements | Istanbul Kent hareketleri.
Observatoire Urbain d'Istanbul | Toki.gov. Istanbul Earthquake Reconstruction Feared Unsafe. ISTANBUL — Istanbul's 15 million people are facing an 80 percent chance of a major earthquake in the next 30 years. In preparation for the predicted quake, the government and local authorities have started to rebuild more than one-third of Istanbul's structures. But, controversy surrounds the reconstruction policy and experts worry the preparations are inadequate.
Turkey's main earthquake monitoring center hums to the sound of powerful computers. It was here at the Kandili Observatory the first news broke of the powerful quake that hit the Istanbul region in 1999, killing up to 30,000 people. Observatory Director Mustafa Erdik warns a far more devastating quake could occur. "The tectonic tensions after the 1999 quake have transferred to Marmara region, and this increased the tension," said Erdik. Last year's powerful quake in the eastern city of Van, set alarm bells ringing in Ankara. Under the new law, homes considered dangerous by a panel of state appointed experts will be replaced.