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Models of Urban Transformation
Pergamon
PII: S0264-2751(01)00031-2
Cities, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 391–401, 2001 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0264-2751/01 $ - see front matter
www.elsevier.com/locate/cities
Models of Urban Transformation Informal Housing in Ankara ¨ zlem Du¨ndar* O Gazi University, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Department of City and Regional Planning, Celal Bayar Bulvarı 06570 Maltepe, Ankara, Turkey
Squatter housing (called gecekondu in Turkish) has been the central element of urban discussions in Turkey since the beginning of the 1950s. However, the solutions to this problem have changed over time. Until the mid-1960s, governments had a negative attitude to squatter housing areas and their populations, seeing them as the sources of social ills in the urban system. Thus, renewal was defined as clearance and redevelopment. However, this situation changed in the 1970s, preparing the necessary ground for rehabilitation and upgrading. In contrast, in the 1980s renewal was evaluated in a global context and equaled regeneration. So, following the 1980s, squatter housing areas have again been considered as problem areas which have to be transformed for the capitalization of global interests, in the name of urban rent. These areas could have been transformed into prestige areas to increase the physical and visual wealth of the city. Thus, first with the improvement plans and later with the urban transformation projects, squatter housing areas have been subject to urban renewal for the betterment of urban space. This study aims to compare these two different squatter housing transformation approaches from the point of view of their impact on the physical and social topography of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: renewal, squatter housing, gecekondu, urban transformation
Introduction
under absentee ownership surrounding the urban cores (Fig. 1). These neighborhoods and their population were first met by a negative official and public reaction. A proposed solution was the demolition of these neighborhoods followed by the building of social housing by the government. Neither solved the problem as multitudes continued to flow to cities. This dual public approach to the problem continued and was reflected in legal measures introduced by a series of amnesty laws1 which legalized the existing gecekondu neighborhoods and forbade building of new ones. This latter decree remained in writing only, as
This study aims to compare two different squatter housing (called gecekondu in Turkish) transformation approaches from the point of view of their impact on the physical and social topography of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. The gecekondu problem appeared as a result of unprecedented dimensions of rural-to-urban migration during the 1940s in Turkey. This migration was started by the transformation of agricultural cultivation technology and further stimulated by the newly developing highway network, both initiated by Marshall Aid from the USA. Gecekondu, a form of make-shift housing, rapidly built by the incomers, developed into extensive neighborhoods constructed on vacant or public land or on farms
1 Governments realized that approximately 50% of the population of Ankara were living in squatter housing areas. With such a large number of people, it was impossible for a government to provide enough alternative housing. So it was proposed to accept the squatter areas as a part of the housing supply and to upgrade their infrastructure and social services.
*Tel.: +90-312-231-74-00/2716; fax: +90-312-230-84-34; e-mail: [email protected]
391
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 1 Squatter housing areas in Ankara, 1985. Source: author
incoming multitudes kept building new gecekondu neighborhoods now protected by populist politicians who discovered the voting potential of these migrants, who were desperate to secure themselves in urban socio-economic and physical spaces. This conflicting dual attitude continued until the 1980s, by which time gecekondus covered almost half of the urban space, some of which, in central locations surrounded by the expanding city, gained a new meaning as sources of potential location rent. The governments changed their attitudes and developed new measures to obtain a share, preferably the largest share from this rent. In this context, two new measures were developed to provide for transformation in gecekondu areas, both of which, together with their impact on different spaces of the cities, will be discussed here.
Transformation through improvement and development plans (IDP) The concept of “transformation” in gecekondu areas was first introduced by a series of Improvement and 392
Development Laws (IDL) issued after 1948. The essence of this law group is different from the subsequent ones which, as mentioned before, aimed to legalize the existing gecekondus and forebade the construction of new ones. IDL, on the other hand, aims to create spatial transformation in gecekondu areas and its two unique aims are to achieve “rapid” transformation on a “mass scale” (S¸ enyapılı and Tu¨ rel, 1996: 13). IDL involves rapid demolition in gecekondu areas, unification of irregular, haphazardly formed parcels and a redesign of them to create new parcels of maximum 400 m2, to allow construction of four-storey apartment houses. This uniform approach is to cover all kinds of existing gecekondu neighborhoods. So now each gecekondu receives the right to own at most a 400-m2 parcel of land and the right to build at most a four-storey house. Transformation was to be achieved by three routes: 1. Large development firms were to enter the most advantageously located gecekondu areas in the centers of the cities, transforming them into large
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar Table 1 Gecekondu stock and improvement plans which were implemented in Ankara (1991)a Administrative district
Altındag˘ C¸ ankaya Etimesgut Go¨ lbas¸ ı Mamak Kec¸ io¨ ren Sincan Yenimahalle
Total
Existing gecekondu area
Implemented improvement plan area
(ha)
ha
%
1668 2171 633 264 4147 1970 9 957
1567 1495 368 264 4007 1893 9 957
94 69 57 100 97 96 100 100
11,819
10,580
90
a
Sources: S¸ enyapılı and Tu¨ rel (1996) (pp 43,44) and Bu¨ yu¨ kgo¨ c¸ men (1997) (p 47)
scale, high-rise prestigious residential neighborhoods. This was realized rapidly as large development firms had political influence and financial power to solve the very confusing ownership problems in gecekondu areas and the bureaucratic problems involved. 2. Small-scale developers who worked individually with a system called “build-and-sell”2 entered gecekondu areas which, although not located in or very near to the city centers, were still advantageously located, eg near access roads, near prestigious residential neighborhoods or urban recreation areas. These developers functioned in especially the most accessible locations of such neighborhoods, transforming the existing stock into small-scale, four- to five-storey family houses in exchange for a few apartments which they obtained and eventually sold for profit. 3. In not so advantageously located gecekondu areas and sections of gecekondu areas, the owners attempted to transform their gecekondus into small-scale family apartment houses with their own savings or preferred to wait for the land rent to increase to levels that would attract small-scale build-and-sellers (S¸ enyapılı and Tu¨ rel, 1996: 16,19). Table 1 shows the stock of gecekondu land and implementation scale of IDPs in Ankara. When it is considered that 94% of improvement plans in Altındag˘ and 69% in C¸ ankaya Districts were finished 2 In build-and-sell types of housing supply, the owner gives his/her land to a building contractor to build a multi-storey apartment block in return for a number of housing units (50% generally) from the block that will be built. The contractor, by the same token, takes the remaining housing units. This type of housing supply has given small investors the possibility of realizing high-rise apartment housing with 10–20 units without large amounts of initial investment like land and to sell the housing units during the construction process as well.
in 1991, it is observed that transformation with improvement plans was nearly totally achieved in the second half of the 1990s (Fig. 2). As to the impacts of transformation through IDP; the problems which are created in areas that could be transformed are as follows. 1. Increasing population density, as can be seen in Table 2. Although population increases are very high (all more than 100%), some of the districts show enormous increases such as Etimesgut (810.76%). The reasons of these differences are, first, the differentiating development potentials of the districts which lead to specific development policies as in the case of advantageous inner city areas. 2. The realization of low standard living spaces, resulting from limited social services and green area usage proposals, to obtain extra shares of the increasing rent of the area. At this point, the urban problem, which will be created in the future by the urban land that is transferred with the improvement plans, must be taken into consideration. This problem can be described as the transformation of single-story gecekondus into apartment blocks and the formation of deteriorating nuclei composed by transition zones. The gecekondus that surround the cities and even penetrate to the centers, carried a potential of being rehabilitated during time depending on their “flexible” characteristics. But the current rapid and unqualified dense constructions will eventually impoverish living conditions, and concrete constructions are not able to be corrected (Fig. 3). The improvement plans accelerate this process rather than prevent it (S¸ enyapılı, 1998: 12). 3. Illicit rent transfer to gecekondu populations who have managed to obtain houses on land belonging to others without permission and taken under the shelter of legal limits by the IDPs, from those who cannot own a house. 393
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Figure 2 Improvement plan areas in Ankara, 1997. Source: Greater Municipality of Ankara Table 2 Increasing population in gecekondu areas with the implementation of IDPs (1990)a Admin. district
Existing gecekondu population
Proposed population by the IDL Population increase (%)
Altındag˘ C¸ ankaya Etimesgut Go¨ lbas¸ ı Kec¸ io¨ ren Mamak Sincan Yenimahalle
159,126 53,101 32,942 – 118,295 210,187 – 194,839
419,265 243,694 267,080 – 498,550 680,036 – 302,126
263.48 458.93 810.76 – 421.45 323.54 – 155.06
Total
768,490
2,108,625
274.38
a
Source: Greater City Municipality of Ankara
4. The loss of neighborhood relations and mutual support because of intricate ownership structure, thus damaging the fabric of society (Fig. 4). In untransformed areas, problems are the tendencies of stopping internal dynamics of rehabilitation and leaving the houses to decay, and to lack of maintenance, with the expectation of rent (Du¨ ndar, 1998: 200).
Transformation in gecekondu neighborhoods of Ankara: urban transformation projects (UTPs) In the second half of the 1980s, large scale urban renewal projects of slum areas of city centers, trans394
formed them into prestigious areas. Urban transformation projects can be evaluated in a sense as the implementations which are brought by global economy supported with new conceptual developments and the transfer of the IDP approach to a greater scale. Thus, urban transformation projects bringing new concepts like public–private partnerships, supporting high-rise constructions with multi-storeys and more green space and social services, and achieving public participation by listening to the gecekondu people, are taking the place of the improvement plans. All the projects have one common aim: to bring a different solution to the areas which cannot be transformed with the improvement plans because of low rent, shared ownership and economic insufficiency of the inhabitants. At present the gecekondu neighbor-
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 3 Left, settlement pattern of the gecekondu. Right, settlement pattern of the improvement plans. Source: YESKEP brochure, Municipality of Yenimahalle
hoods of Ankara are located in eight different administrative districts. In three of these districts (Go¨ lbas¸ı, Kec¸ io¨ ren, Sincan) transformation is planned to be achieved through implementation of IDPs and for the rest UTPs are in effect. The process started with two large-scale projects covering gecekondu neighborhoods located in two prominent valleys now enclosed within the extended urban macroform. The projects designed for the Dikmen Valley and the Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Valley, are already implemented. Both projects received a lot of support and stimulated others. The ideas behind these projects were in fact centered around a goal of regenerating these prestigious central areas into luxury housing areas with office and central facilities, also preserving the green character of the valleys. Dikmen Valley Housing and Environmental Development Project proposed the regeneration of a transition area, located in close proximity to the centre of Ankara, with a new organization model which can be clarified as a reform of the Turkish administrative system. The model of Dikmen Valley Project was to enable contracting/finance firms to undertake construction in a prestigious area by sharing the rent. This was a public–private participation model, in which a development corporation (Metropol A.S¸ .) which had been formed under the Greater Ankara Municipality, took the role in coordinating the public and the private firms. The project encompasses a valley of 158 hectares, which is an important element of Ankara Metropolitan Area Culture and Recreation System, containing 2300 gecekondus with 9809 residents in 1989. The project involved the demolition of all gecekondus. The valley sides sloped gently, allowing for focal grouping of housing units. So a total of 23 hectares of the area (14.5%) in the valley was allocated to housing and 18,000 people were settled in 404 housing units. Furthermore, at the junction points of new transportation artery proposals, municipal service areas which would include commercial and service
facilities and office space were allocated. These would accommodate both the new population and also strengthen the social infrastructure on the regional and city scale (Fig. 5). The second valley project in C¸ ankaya District, Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Urban Development Project was one of the green area projects of the municipality. Fifty-five percent of the project area was in government ownership and the rest was in private ownership. The new municipality proposed a plan of housing and green space for the valley with three aims: 1. to earn Ankara a green area with a contemporary high urban standard without destroying the natural characteristics of the valley; 2. to realize a self-financing project without making the government reserve huge amounts of financial resources; 3. to allow the landowners to participate in the project via a system that is not detrimental to their interests (Go¨ ksu, 1991: 2). To fulfil these aims, a company was set up with the property owners, comprising the gecekondu owners, the municipality, and the shareholders. The Joint Stock Company of Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Valley Project Development, Administration and Trading (PORTAS¸ ) had an organization of “Land Development”, “Project Management” or “Urban Renewal”. PORTAS¸ would buy the land from the shareholders and would give a share from the construction in return for a given percentage, proportionate to the size of their lands and distribute the profits of the company in return for their share (Go¨ ksu, 1991: 2,3). Moreover, there would be representatives of the landowners on the board of directors and board of control of PORTAS¸ . So all the project participants would be involved in every level of project evaluation. In fact, all decisions and principles of the project were realized in agreement with the project participants who became shareholders in this case. 395
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 4 Above, life in a gecekondu. Below, new housing in improvement plan areas
There were 67 squatter houses in the area, of which 38 were owned and 29 were rented. Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Valley Project included housing, workplaces and some social facilities in a green area (82% of the project area). A total of 55,000 new dwelling units would be built in three apartment blocks and a few small-rise apartment blocks to be equally distributed between landowners, municipality and the construction company. Following these two projects, district municipalities of Ankara developed similar transformation 396
projects for gecekondu neighborhoods located within their boundaries. There is a common aim of the projects: transformation of the gecekondu areas into prestige areas of high-rise apartment, luxury housing with a model to enable contracting/finance firms to undertake construction by sharing the rent (Table 3). Organization models Three of the transformation projects, in Su¨ vari, Ege and M.A. Ersoy neighborhoods, do not seem to pos-
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 5 Dikmen Valley today
Table 3 Settlement patterns provided by the urban transformation projects in Ankara UTP Dikmen Valley Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Valley Yıldızevler Aktas¸ -Atilla Ege neighborhood Mehmet Akif Ersoy neighborhood
Existing population 9809 402 990 800 5300 4000
sess organization and transformation models. In Su¨ vari neighborhood, the gecekondus will be replaced by a green area because of the danger of erosion. But there is neither a proposal for the transfer of ownership rights nor an organization model for the transformation of the land that will bring the necessary grounds for the renewal of this gecekondu neighborhood. It has been planned that in Ege and M.A. Ersoy neighborhoods, each gecekondu block is to establish a cooperative. Furthermore, in the Ege neighborhood, it has been pointed out that there will not be expropriations, the original population will leave their parcels and own new ones but which kind of appropriation will be adopted for the existing gecekondus over the land is not mentioned. The land ownership rights are assumed to be developed when the transformation process begins. The social service areas will be provided on the government land. So, ownership rights will be transferred without any problem. Moreover, the project proposes an overspill area in adjacent municipal lands so that the project population can be settled during the implementation (Ege Urban Trans-
Proposed population 18,000 220,000 2345 1650 30,177 8000
Population increase (%) 183.50 54,726.37 236.87 206.25 569.38 200.00
formation Project Research and Evaluation Report, 1996: 36). Lack of clearcut and realistic organization processes of transformation in these projects implies that although local governments aim to achieve rapid transformation on a mass scale, they have not been able to advance any further than using traditional planning concepts and so it is most likely for their plans to remain as documents only and their achievements will probably not surpass those of IDPs. In contrast, the Aktas¸-Atilla Urban Transformation Project had an organization plan to begin with and accordingly houses to be built were put up for bidding in return for apartments to be received by developers. Yet, no developer entered bids, because of low levels of expected rent due to topographic thresholds existing in the area. Therefore, the municipality ended up by establishing a development agency after the Dikmen Valley Project example. The Yıldızevler project has a rather different organization model and transformation process. Instead of establishing an ad hoc municipal agency, this model is based on housing cooperatives. In other 397
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words, the municipality has prepared the development plan and transformation projects and has then left the process to the market mechanism. At this stage, the role of the municipality is limited to the encouragement of building cooperatives based on voluntary membership. In implementation, it was observed that the level of organization was low and cooperative building based on voluntary membership tended to concentrate in certain areas of the neighborhood and so failed to contain all. Therefore, the municipality had to introduce staging and accordingly those residents who had been organized into cooperatives in the first stage, demolished their gecekondus themselves and searched for and engaged developers to build the new apartment houses. The other residents, impressed by the developments, became organized in the second and third stages to enter the transformation process, although in this case the process of organization covered five years. This process shows that organization of transformation in stages lends feasibility to the project as it convinces hesitant residents as they observe partial implementation. Realization of the project, even at a limited scale, provides information about the process and the end product, and thus generates a sense of security, stimulating larger scale participation. Also the possibility of an IDP increases the expectations of the gecekondu population of gaining rent from their land. So they resist participating in any transformation project which will give them only the right of continuing their existing situation on economic space and sometimes making them worse off. But a precise organization model that will put forward the project proposals, along with the transfer of ownership rights, will encourage them to participate in the urban transformation projects. Finance model As to the finance models, the municipalities do not share any means except the planning process and are trying to find various ways that these plans may finance themselves. For example, in Altındag˘ it is stated that an expropriation is not possible and a gas station and a dormitory building are added to the plan in order to obtain financial means to the dwellings. The method applied for the participation of the project population is as follows. Depending on the agreements signed with the participants, the plots are bought at high prices. After the plot value is subtracted from the dwelling price that the owner has declared, the difference is divided into instalments and the owners are debted. It is expected that such pay-back will be applied without any problems. In Yıldızevler, it is seen that the whole finance is left to the project participants. The only role of the municipality is the plan making procedure. The financial model of this project is as follows. The cooperatives agree with a firm on the basis of construction area and share it. The municipality is not involved at this point. The firms can pay the rental costs 398
depending on the agreements. The transformation model of Yıldızevler is realized with a build–sell model. The same financial model is proposed in M.A. Ersoy neighborhood. It is essential that the municipalities will not be under any kind of financial burden, and that the transformation will be obtained by build– sell within the marketing mechanism and these subjects will improve after the process begins. But, in this project it is declared that the municipality will create rent areas after the settlement rights are given. These discussions show that there are two financial models in urban transformation projects depending on whether the objective is to make the projects finance themselves, as in the case of the valley projects. One is to open lands for facilities other than housing which will increase the value of the project area, thus allowing additional rent to be returned to the housing areas. The second model is to leave the projects to market forces in the hands of build-and-sell type developers. The first model seems to be realistic in economic terms but it has some repercussions. First, to reserve some of the project area for other facilities than housing decreases the amount of land vailable for social services and increases the overall density. Secondly, such facilities as a dormitory in Aktas¸-Atilla neighborhood and the municipal service area in Dikmen Valley increase the rent of the area and thus the speculative pressures on the entire district. This, in turn, attract additional facilities which are not planned in the projects. Moreover, after the project’s completion, increasing rent values results in the transformation of these facilities into more valuable facilities, as in the case of Dikmen Valley; the municipal service areas are left to luxury housing after the project’s completion as a result of the speculative pressures on the valley. Today there are two high-rise apartment blocks on one side of the valley, increasing the density and placing additional pressure on the original population in economic and social terms. The second model, on the other hand, is nothing more than the application of IDP’s financial system and has the following results. Land which is not advantageous for build-and-sell developers will not be able to be transformed. Both of the projects that used this model were in prestigious locations in the city so this model was used without any problems. But it is a fact that this model cannot be applied to every urban transformation project. Participation model Participation has been the key to every planning effort in Turkey as a reflection of public–private partnership models and the increasing importance of citizen participation in the world. First the valley projects, then all other urban transformation projects, added participation to their organization models to prevent public resistance to transformation and to increase their support rather than getting useful criteria from the original populations to develop the planning schemes
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
themselves. In every project, one of the project principles is to provide participation at every step of implementation. But none of the projects define “how?” In Aktas¸-Atilla project, for instance, the municipality organized public meetings to explain the project to the neighborhood population, as in the case of the valley projects. However, the valley projects proved that this type of organization is nothing more than information-giving, so it cannot possess an active participation system in a democratic planning environment. Ege project is a good example in this respect. The project population tried every means possible to stop demolitions, although there is a waste disposal area within the neighborhood which threatens their health. Likewise in M.A. Ersoy neighborhood, the politicians do not support the urban transformation project of the municipality because of the reactions of the population. The reason behind these reactions is mostly the expectation of gaining two to three housing units in return for their gecekondus, as they believe this is a right given them with the IDPs. Division of the project into phases, as in the case of Yıldızevler, shows that public reactions can be used positively in the organization of a participatory organization model that will increase the implementation possibility of any urban transformation project.
Conclusion Recent discussions about gecekondu neighborhoods have focused on two areas. First, the necessity of transformation of these areas, which are seen as problem zones, but which acquire prestige because of their central location, and also by solving economic and social problems. Secondly, the IDPs which were seen as the only way of transformation until recently, either cannot lead to successful results or cannot transform gecekondu areas. At this point, urban transformation projects provide new possibilities with a goal of renewal especially in first generation gecekondu areas which are within the extended urban macroform. The best example of this situation is Ege district. It is seen that this area has gained considerable prestige with the investments made to its surroundings. C¸ ankaya-Mamak viaduct, that reduces the transportation to a mere 8 minutes, I˙mrahor Valley Recreation Area, and Dog˘ ukent new settlement area, are the environmental developments that elevate the prestige of Ege district. These developments leave the area under speculative pressures while reevaluating the area and speeding up transformation. For this reason, especially in projects that adopt transformation with build-sell, speed up the renewal process but apart from the improvement plans, low density and more socio-cultural service expectations leave their place to high density and the production of high standard dwellings. In this respect, the characteristics of luxury and prestige that are created with the project’s visual
elements solve the physical problems of the gecekondu areas. However, implementation shows that these projects transfer the economic and social problems to the other parts of the city. For instance, one of the goals of the municipalities is not to dismiss the original populations of the project areas while transforming these areas. Allowing the existing gecekondu population to remain in the transformed area is a desirable aim, but cannot be achieved in the long-run. First the tenant population has not been considered as project participants so an important number of people have been dismissed from project areas at the beginning. Later, project participants are pushed from project areas by the pressure of change. This unexpected inner-city migration destroys the social topography of the city. Additionally, problems such as the inabilities of the gecekondu population to integrate into the social life of the city deepen as a result of such transformation efforts. These prove the fact that social and economic expectations from such problem areas are complementary, so it is not easy to evaluate them in an integrative approach within a process of transformation. Even the new organization models proposed by the UTPs, which put forward new concepts such as public–private partnerships, self-financing and public participation with a different view of planning than the IDPs, cannot propose an efficient solution to this problem. As to the physical transformation of the project areas, one cannot say that UTPs create a totally different spatial pattern than the IDPs: from a low-density settlement pattern with large open areas, designed at the human scale, to a high-density, unliveable settlement pattern, from a lack of spatial diversity to economic and social inaccessibility of a diversity in space, from the anxiety of lacking social services and green areas to the anxiety of losing existing and proposed social service areas in the future because of increasing rent values. UTPs rest on the idea that horizontal growth with high-rise apartment blocks gives the possibility of leaving large areas for green areas and social services. But this decreases the building density not the population density. UTPs increase the populations of the gecekondu areas as in the case of IDPs, so they put pressure on space, not only in the project areas but in the whole district as well (Fig. 6). Yet, transformation of city sections makes pressure on nearby areas by increasing land values. For instance, the new settlement pattern of Dikmen Valley Project put pressure of transformation on an adjacent area, Yıldızevler. This exampe shows that any transformation project forces rearrangements in the urban macroform. This can be seen in the adjacent areas as in the case of Yıldızevler or in the retransformative activities of the early gecekondu areas transformed before. On the other hand, in the case of Dikmen Valley, an area preserved for public use in the original pro399
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 6 Transformation in Aktasˆ-Atilla neighborhood. Source: Municipality of Alty´ ndag˘
ject, was transformed into a luxury housing area as a result of rent increases in the valley after the project. This example proves the fact that social goals can easily be given up to meet economic expectations and the original project aims can be subject to retransformation with external effects of renewal in time. Urban transformation projects, each designed in a part 400
of the city, do not possess an integrative planning effort, thus leading to the approval of partial plans without a decision for their effects on the overall urban form. However, such a scheme can put these projects on a city section to analyze their mutual interaction not only on physical space but on socio-economic development patterns.
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
References Bu¨ yu¨ kgo¨ c¸ men, A (1997). Squatter neighborhoods with improvement plans in 1984–1989 period, PhD Thesis presented to the Middle East Technical University, Ankara. ¨ (1996) The Dikmen Valley Squatter Housing Renewal Du¨ ndar, O Project in Ankara. Ekistics 63(376/377/378), 116–126. ¨ (1998). Two different approaches to the renewal of Du¨ ndar, O squatter housing areas in Turkey, ENHR 98, Cardiff.
Ege Urban Transformation Project Research and Evaluation Report (1996). Municipality of Mamak, Ankara. Go¨ ksu, A F (1991) Portakal Gıˆgegˆ i Vadisi Kentel Gelis¸me Projesi Raporu, Ankara. S¸ enyapılı, T and Tu¨ rel, A (1996). Ankara’da Gecekondu Olus¸ um Su¨ reci ve Ruhsatlı Konut Sunumu, Batıbirlik Yayınları No 1, Ankara. S¸ enyapılı, T (1998) Cumhuriyet’in 75. yılı, gecekondunun 50. Yılı. In 75 Yılda Deg˘ is¸en Kent ve Mimarlık, (ed.) Y Sey., pp 301– 316. Tu¨ rkiye I˙s¸ Bankası Ku¨ ltu¨ r Yayınları, Tarih Vakfı, Istanbul.
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Cities, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp. 391–401, 2001 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0264-2751/01 $ - see front matter
www.elsevier.com/locate/cities
Models of Urban Transformation Informal Housing in Ankara ¨ zlem Du¨ndar* O Gazi University, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Department of City and Regional Planning, Celal Bayar Bulvarı 06570 Maltepe, Ankara, Turkey
Squatter housing (called gecekondu in Turkish) has been the central element of urban discussions in Turkey since the beginning of the 1950s. However, the solutions to this problem have changed over time. Until the mid-1960s, governments had a negative attitude to squatter housing areas and their populations, seeing them as the sources of social ills in the urban system. Thus, renewal was defined as clearance and redevelopment. However, this situation changed in the 1970s, preparing the necessary ground for rehabilitation and upgrading. In contrast, in the 1980s renewal was evaluated in a global context and equaled regeneration. So, following the 1980s, squatter housing areas have again been considered as problem areas which have to be transformed for the capitalization of global interests, in the name of urban rent. These areas could have been transformed into prestige areas to increase the physical and visual wealth of the city. Thus, first with the improvement plans and later with the urban transformation projects, squatter housing areas have been subject to urban renewal for the betterment of urban space. This study aims to compare these two different squatter housing transformation approaches from the point of view of their impact on the physical and social topography of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: renewal, squatter housing, gecekondu, urban transformation
Introduction
under absentee ownership surrounding the urban cores (Fig. 1). These neighborhoods and their population were first met by a negative official and public reaction. A proposed solution was the demolition of these neighborhoods followed by the building of social housing by the government. Neither solved the problem as multitudes continued to flow to cities. This dual public approach to the problem continued and was reflected in legal measures introduced by a series of amnesty laws1 which legalized the existing gecekondu neighborhoods and forbade building of new ones. This latter decree remained in writing only, as
This study aims to compare two different squatter housing (called gecekondu in Turkish) transformation approaches from the point of view of their impact on the physical and social topography of Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. The gecekondu problem appeared as a result of unprecedented dimensions of rural-to-urban migration during the 1940s in Turkey. This migration was started by the transformation of agricultural cultivation technology and further stimulated by the newly developing highway network, both initiated by Marshall Aid from the USA. Gecekondu, a form of make-shift housing, rapidly built by the incomers, developed into extensive neighborhoods constructed on vacant or public land or on farms
1 Governments realized that approximately 50% of the population of Ankara were living in squatter housing areas. With such a large number of people, it was impossible for a government to provide enough alternative housing. So it was proposed to accept the squatter areas as a part of the housing supply and to upgrade their infrastructure and social services.
*Tel.: +90-312-231-74-00/2716; fax: +90-312-230-84-34; e-mail: [email protected]
391
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Figure 1 Squatter housing areas in Ankara, 1985. Source: author
incoming multitudes kept building new gecekondu neighborhoods now protected by populist politicians who discovered the voting potential of these migrants, who were desperate to secure themselves in urban socio-economic and physical spaces. This conflicting dual attitude continued until the 1980s, by which time gecekondus covered almost half of the urban space, some of which, in central locations surrounded by the expanding city, gained a new meaning as sources of potential location rent. The governments changed their attitudes and developed new measures to obtain a share, preferably the largest share from this rent. In this context, two new measures were developed to provide for transformation in gecekondu areas, both of which, together with their impact on different spaces of the cities, will be discussed here.
Transformation through improvement and development plans (IDP) The concept of “transformation” in gecekondu areas was first introduced by a series of Improvement and 392
Development Laws (IDL) issued after 1948. The essence of this law group is different from the subsequent ones which, as mentioned before, aimed to legalize the existing gecekondus and forebade the construction of new ones. IDL, on the other hand, aims to create spatial transformation in gecekondu areas and its two unique aims are to achieve “rapid” transformation on a “mass scale” (S¸ enyapılı and Tu¨ rel, 1996: 13). IDL involves rapid demolition in gecekondu areas, unification of irregular, haphazardly formed parcels and a redesign of them to create new parcels of maximum 400 m2, to allow construction of four-storey apartment houses. This uniform approach is to cover all kinds of existing gecekondu neighborhoods. So now each gecekondu receives the right to own at most a 400-m2 parcel of land and the right to build at most a four-storey house. Transformation was to be achieved by three routes: 1. Large development firms were to enter the most advantageously located gecekondu areas in the centers of the cities, transforming them into large
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar Table 1 Gecekondu stock and improvement plans which were implemented in Ankara (1991)a Administrative district
Altındag˘ C¸ ankaya Etimesgut Go¨ lbas¸ ı Mamak Kec¸ io¨ ren Sincan Yenimahalle
Total
Existing gecekondu area
Implemented improvement plan area
(ha)
ha
%
1668 2171 633 264 4147 1970 9 957
1567 1495 368 264 4007 1893 9 957
94 69 57 100 97 96 100 100
11,819
10,580
90
a
Sources: S¸ enyapılı and Tu¨ rel (1996) (pp 43,44) and Bu¨ yu¨ kgo¨ c¸ men (1997) (p 47)
scale, high-rise prestigious residential neighborhoods. This was realized rapidly as large development firms had political influence and financial power to solve the very confusing ownership problems in gecekondu areas and the bureaucratic problems involved. 2. Small-scale developers who worked individually with a system called “build-and-sell”2 entered gecekondu areas which, although not located in or very near to the city centers, were still advantageously located, eg near access roads, near prestigious residential neighborhoods or urban recreation areas. These developers functioned in especially the most accessible locations of such neighborhoods, transforming the existing stock into small-scale, four- to five-storey family houses in exchange for a few apartments which they obtained and eventually sold for profit. 3. In not so advantageously located gecekondu areas and sections of gecekondu areas, the owners attempted to transform their gecekondus into small-scale family apartment houses with their own savings or preferred to wait for the land rent to increase to levels that would attract small-scale build-and-sellers (S¸ enyapılı and Tu¨ rel, 1996: 16,19). Table 1 shows the stock of gecekondu land and implementation scale of IDPs in Ankara. When it is considered that 94% of improvement plans in Altındag˘ and 69% in C¸ ankaya Districts were finished 2 In build-and-sell types of housing supply, the owner gives his/her land to a building contractor to build a multi-storey apartment block in return for a number of housing units (50% generally) from the block that will be built. The contractor, by the same token, takes the remaining housing units. This type of housing supply has given small investors the possibility of realizing high-rise apartment housing with 10–20 units without large amounts of initial investment like land and to sell the housing units during the construction process as well.
in 1991, it is observed that transformation with improvement plans was nearly totally achieved in the second half of the 1990s (Fig. 2). As to the impacts of transformation through IDP; the problems which are created in areas that could be transformed are as follows. 1. Increasing population density, as can be seen in Table 2. Although population increases are very high (all more than 100%), some of the districts show enormous increases such as Etimesgut (810.76%). The reasons of these differences are, first, the differentiating development potentials of the districts which lead to specific development policies as in the case of advantageous inner city areas. 2. The realization of low standard living spaces, resulting from limited social services and green area usage proposals, to obtain extra shares of the increasing rent of the area. At this point, the urban problem, which will be created in the future by the urban land that is transferred with the improvement plans, must be taken into consideration. This problem can be described as the transformation of single-story gecekondus into apartment blocks and the formation of deteriorating nuclei composed by transition zones. The gecekondus that surround the cities and even penetrate to the centers, carried a potential of being rehabilitated during time depending on their “flexible” characteristics. But the current rapid and unqualified dense constructions will eventually impoverish living conditions, and concrete constructions are not able to be corrected (Fig. 3). The improvement plans accelerate this process rather than prevent it (S¸ enyapılı, 1998: 12). 3. Illicit rent transfer to gecekondu populations who have managed to obtain houses on land belonging to others without permission and taken under the shelter of legal limits by the IDPs, from those who cannot own a house. 393
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Figure 2 Improvement plan areas in Ankara, 1997. Source: Greater Municipality of Ankara Table 2 Increasing population in gecekondu areas with the implementation of IDPs (1990)a Admin. district
Existing gecekondu population
Proposed population by the IDL Population increase (%)
Altındag˘ C¸ ankaya Etimesgut Go¨ lbas¸ ı Kec¸ io¨ ren Mamak Sincan Yenimahalle
159,126 53,101 32,942 – 118,295 210,187 – 194,839
419,265 243,694 267,080 – 498,550 680,036 – 302,126
263.48 458.93 810.76 – 421.45 323.54 – 155.06
Total
768,490
2,108,625
274.38
a
Source: Greater City Municipality of Ankara
4. The loss of neighborhood relations and mutual support because of intricate ownership structure, thus damaging the fabric of society (Fig. 4). In untransformed areas, problems are the tendencies of stopping internal dynamics of rehabilitation and leaving the houses to decay, and to lack of maintenance, with the expectation of rent (Du¨ ndar, 1998: 200).
Transformation in gecekondu neighborhoods of Ankara: urban transformation projects (UTPs) In the second half of the 1980s, large scale urban renewal projects of slum areas of city centers, trans394
formed them into prestigious areas. Urban transformation projects can be evaluated in a sense as the implementations which are brought by global economy supported with new conceptual developments and the transfer of the IDP approach to a greater scale. Thus, urban transformation projects bringing new concepts like public–private partnerships, supporting high-rise constructions with multi-storeys and more green space and social services, and achieving public participation by listening to the gecekondu people, are taking the place of the improvement plans. All the projects have one common aim: to bring a different solution to the areas which cannot be transformed with the improvement plans because of low rent, shared ownership and economic insufficiency of the inhabitants. At present the gecekondu neighbor-
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 3 Left, settlement pattern of the gecekondu. Right, settlement pattern of the improvement plans. Source: YESKEP brochure, Municipality of Yenimahalle
hoods of Ankara are located in eight different administrative districts. In three of these districts (Go¨ lbas¸ı, Kec¸ io¨ ren, Sincan) transformation is planned to be achieved through implementation of IDPs and for the rest UTPs are in effect. The process started with two large-scale projects covering gecekondu neighborhoods located in two prominent valleys now enclosed within the extended urban macroform. The projects designed for the Dikmen Valley and the Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Valley, are already implemented. Both projects received a lot of support and stimulated others. The ideas behind these projects were in fact centered around a goal of regenerating these prestigious central areas into luxury housing areas with office and central facilities, also preserving the green character of the valleys. Dikmen Valley Housing and Environmental Development Project proposed the regeneration of a transition area, located in close proximity to the centre of Ankara, with a new organization model which can be clarified as a reform of the Turkish administrative system. The model of Dikmen Valley Project was to enable contracting/finance firms to undertake construction in a prestigious area by sharing the rent. This was a public–private participation model, in which a development corporation (Metropol A.S¸ .) which had been formed under the Greater Ankara Municipality, took the role in coordinating the public and the private firms. The project encompasses a valley of 158 hectares, which is an important element of Ankara Metropolitan Area Culture and Recreation System, containing 2300 gecekondus with 9809 residents in 1989. The project involved the demolition of all gecekondus. The valley sides sloped gently, allowing for focal grouping of housing units. So a total of 23 hectares of the area (14.5%) in the valley was allocated to housing and 18,000 people were settled in 404 housing units. Furthermore, at the junction points of new transportation artery proposals, municipal service areas which would include commercial and service
facilities and office space were allocated. These would accommodate both the new population and also strengthen the social infrastructure on the regional and city scale (Fig. 5). The second valley project in C¸ ankaya District, Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Urban Development Project was one of the green area projects of the municipality. Fifty-five percent of the project area was in government ownership and the rest was in private ownership. The new municipality proposed a plan of housing and green space for the valley with three aims: 1. to earn Ankara a green area with a contemporary high urban standard without destroying the natural characteristics of the valley; 2. to realize a self-financing project without making the government reserve huge amounts of financial resources; 3. to allow the landowners to participate in the project via a system that is not detrimental to their interests (Go¨ ksu, 1991: 2). To fulfil these aims, a company was set up with the property owners, comprising the gecekondu owners, the municipality, and the shareholders. The Joint Stock Company of Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Valley Project Development, Administration and Trading (PORTAS¸ ) had an organization of “Land Development”, “Project Management” or “Urban Renewal”. PORTAS¸ would buy the land from the shareholders and would give a share from the construction in return for a given percentage, proportionate to the size of their lands and distribute the profits of the company in return for their share (Go¨ ksu, 1991: 2,3). Moreover, there would be representatives of the landowners on the board of directors and board of control of PORTAS¸ . So all the project participants would be involved in every level of project evaluation. In fact, all decisions and principles of the project were realized in agreement with the project participants who became shareholders in this case. 395
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 4 Above, life in a gecekondu. Below, new housing in improvement plan areas
There were 67 squatter houses in the area, of which 38 were owned and 29 were rented. Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Valley Project included housing, workplaces and some social facilities in a green area (82% of the project area). A total of 55,000 new dwelling units would be built in three apartment blocks and a few small-rise apartment blocks to be equally distributed between landowners, municipality and the construction company. Following these two projects, district municipalities of Ankara developed similar transformation 396
projects for gecekondu neighborhoods located within their boundaries. There is a common aim of the projects: transformation of the gecekondu areas into prestige areas of high-rise apartment, luxury housing with a model to enable contracting/finance firms to undertake construction by sharing the rent (Table 3). Organization models Three of the transformation projects, in Su¨ vari, Ege and M.A. Ersoy neighborhoods, do not seem to pos-
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 5 Dikmen Valley today
Table 3 Settlement patterns provided by the urban transformation projects in Ankara UTP Dikmen Valley Portakal C¸ ic¸ eg˘ i Valley Yıldızevler Aktas¸ -Atilla Ege neighborhood Mehmet Akif Ersoy neighborhood
Existing population 9809 402 990 800 5300 4000
sess organization and transformation models. In Su¨ vari neighborhood, the gecekondus will be replaced by a green area because of the danger of erosion. But there is neither a proposal for the transfer of ownership rights nor an organization model for the transformation of the land that will bring the necessary grounds for the renewal of this gecekondu neighborhood. It has been planned that in Ege and M.A. Ersoy neighborhoods, each gecekondu block is to establish a cooperative. Furthermore, in the Ege neighborhood, it has been pointed out that there will not be expropriations, the original population will leave their parcels and own new ones but which kind of appropriation will be adopted for the existing gecekondus over the land is not mentioned. The land ownership rights are assumed to be developed when the transformation process begins. The social service areas will be provided on the government land. So, ownership rights will be transferred without any problem. Moreover, the project proposes an overspill area in adjacent municipal lands so that the project population can be settled during the implementation (Ege Urban Trans-
Proposed population 18,000 220,000 2345 1650 30,177 8000
Population increase (%) 183.50 54,726.37 236.87 206.25 569.38 200.00
formation Project Research and Evaluation Report, 1996: 36). Lack of clearcut and realistic organization processes of transformation in these projects implies that although local governments aim to achieve rapid transformation on a mass scale, they have not been able to advance any further than using traditional planning concepts and so it is most likely for their plans to remain as documents only and their achievements will probably not surpass those of IDPs. In contrast, the Aktas¸-Atilla Urban Transformation Project had an organization plan to begin with and accordingly houses to be built were put up for bidding in return for apartments to be received by developers. Yet, no developer entered bids, because of low levels of expected rent due to topographic thresholds existing in the area. Therefore, the municipality ended up by establishing a development agency after the Dikmen Valley Project example. The Yıldızevler project has a rather different organization model and transformation process. Instead of establishing an ad hoc municipal agency, this model is based on housing cooperatives. In other 397
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
words, the municipality has prepared the development plan and transformation projects and has then left the process to the market mechanism. At this stage, the role of the municipality is limited to the encouragement of building cooperatives based on voluntary membership. In implementation, it was observed that the level of organization was low and cooperative building based on voluntary membership tended to concentrate in certain areas of the neighborhood and so failed to contain all. Therefore, the municipality had to introduce staging and accordingly those residents who had been organized into cooperatives in the first stage, demolished their gecekondus themselves and searched for and engaged developers to build the new apartment houses. The other residents, impressed by the developments, became organized in the second and third stages to enter the transformation process, although in this case the process of organization covered five years. This process shows that organization of transformation in stages lends feasibility to the project as it convinces hesitant residents as they observe partial implementation. Realization of the project, even at a limited scale, provides information about the process and the end product, and thus generates a sense of security, stimulating larger scale participation. Also the possibility of an IDP increases the expectations of the gecekondu population of gaining rent from their land. So they resist participating in any transformation project which will give them only the right of continuing their existing situation on economic space and sometimes making them worse off. But a precise organization model that will put forward the project proposals, along with the transfer of ownership rights, will encourage them to participate in the urban transformation projects. Finance model As to the finance models, the municipalities do not share any means except the planning process and are trying to find various ways that these plans may finance themselves. For example, in Altındag˘ it is stated that an expropriation is not possible and a gas station and a dormitory building are added to the plan in order to obtain financial means to the dwellings. The method applied for the participation of the project population is as follows. Depending on the agreements signed with the participants, the plots are bought at high prices. After the plot value is subtracted from the dwelling price that the owner has declared, the difference is divided into instalments and the owners are debted. It is expected that such pay-back will be applied without any problems. In Yıldızevler, it is seen that the whole finance is left to the project participants. The only role of the municipality is the plan making procedure. The financial model of this project is as follows. The cooperatives agree with a firm on the basis of construction area and share it. The municipality is not involved at this point. The firms can pay the rental costs 398
depending on the agreements. The transformation model of Yıldızevler is realized with a build–sell model. The same financial model is proposed in M.A. Ersoy neighborhood. It is essential that the municipalities will not be under any kind of financial burden, and that the transformation will be obtained by build– sell within the marketing mechanism and these subjects will improve after the process begins. But, in this project it is declared that the municipality will create rent areas after the settlement rights are given. These discussions show that there are two financial models in urban transformation projects depending on whether the objective is to make the projects finance themselves, as in the case of the valley projects. One is to open lands for facilities other than housing which will increase the value of the project area, thus allowing additional rent to be returned to the housing areas. The second model is to leave the projects to market forces in the hands of build-and-sell type developers. The first model seems to be realistic in economic terms but it has some repercussions. First, to reserve some of the project area for other facilities than housing decreases the amount of land vailable for social services and increases the overall density. Secondly, such facilities as a dormitory in Aktas¸-Atilla neighborhood and the municipal service area in Dikmen Valley increase the rent of the area and thus the speculative pressures on the entire district. This, in turn, attract additional facilities which are not planned in the projects. Moreover, after the project’s completion, increasing rent values results in the transformation of these facilities into more valuable facilities, as in the case of Dikmen Valley; the municipal service areas are left to luxury housing after the project’s completion as a result of the speculative pressures on the valley. Today there are two high-rise apartment blocks on one side of the valley, increasing the density and placing additional pressure on the original population in economic and social terms. The second model, on the other hand, is nothing more than the application of IDP’s financial system and has the following results. Land which is not advantageous for build-and-sell developers will not be able to be transformed. Both of the projects that used this model were in prestigious locations in the city so this model was used without any problems. But it is a fact that this model cannot be applied to every urban transformation project. Participation model Participation has been the key to every planning effort in Turkey as a reflection of public–private partnership models and the increasing importance of citizen participation in the world. First the valley projects, then all other urban transformation projects, added participation to their organization models to prevent public resistance to transformation and to increase their support rather than getting useful criteria from the original populations to develop the planning schemes
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
themselves. In every project, one of the project principles is to provide participation at every step of implementation. But none of the projects define “how?” In Aktas¸-Atilla project, for instance, the municipality organized public meetings to explain the project to the neighborhood population, as in the case of the valley projects. However, the valley projects proved that this type of organization is nothing more than information-giving, so it cannot possess an active participation system in a democratic planning environment. Ege project is a good example in this respect. The project population tried every means possible to stop demolitions, although there is a waste disposal area within the neighborhood which threatens their health. Likewise in M.A. Ersoy neighborhood, the politicians do not support the urban transformation project of the municipality because of the reactions of the population. The reason behind these reactions is mostly the expectation of gaining two to three housing units in return for their gecekondus, as they believe this is a right given them with the IDPs. Division of the project into phases, as in the case of Yıldızevler, shows that public reactions can be used positively in the organization of a participatory organization model that will increase the implementation possibility of any urban transformation project.
Conclusion Recent discussions about gecekondu neighborhoods have focused on two areas. First, the necessity of transformation of these areas, which are seen as problem zones, but which acquire prestige because of their central location, and also by solving economic and social problems. Secondly, the IDPs which were seen as the only way of transformation until recently, either cannot lead to successful results or cannot transform gecekondu areas. At this point, urban transformation projects provide new possibilities with a goal of renewal especially in first generation gecekondu areas which are within the extended urban macroform. The best example of this situation is Ege district. It is seen that this area has gained considerable prestige with the investments made to its surroundings. C¸ ankaya-Mamak viaduct, that reduces the transportation to a mere 8 minutes, I˙mrahor Valley Recreation Area, and Dog˘ ukent new settlement area, are the environmental developments that elevate the prestige of Ege district. These developments leave the area under speculative pressures while reevaluating the area and speeding up transformation. For this reason, especially in projects that adopt transformation with build-sell, speed up the renewal process but apart from the improvement plans, low density and more socio-cultural service expectations leave their place to high density and the production of high standard dwellings. In this respect, the characteristics of luxury and prestige that are created with the project’s visual
elements solve the physical problems of the gecekondu areas. However, implementation shows that these projects transfer the economic and social problems to the other parts of the city. For instance, one of the goals of the municipalities is not to dismiss the original populations of the project areas while transforming these areas. Allowing the existing gecekondu population to remain in the transformed area is a desirable aim, but cannot be achieved in the long-run. First the tenant population has not been considered as project participants so an important number of people have been dismissed from project areas at the beginning. Later, project participants are pushed from project areas by the pressure of change. This unexpected inner-city migration destroys the social topography of the city. Additionally, problems such as the inabilities of the gecekondu population to integrate into the social life of the city deepen as a result of such transformation efforts. These prove the fact that social and economic expectations from such problem areas are complementary, so it is not easy to evaluate them in an integrative approach within a process of transformation. Even the new organization models proposed by the UTPs, which put forward new concepts such as public–private partnerships, self-financing and public participation with a different view of planning than the IDPs, cannot propose an efficient solution to this problem. As to the physical transformation of the project areas, one cannot say that UTPs create a totally different spatial pattern than the IDPs: from a low-density settlement pattern with large open areas, designed at the human scale, to a high-density, unliveable settlement pattern, from a lack of spatial diversity to economic and social inaccessibility of a diversity in space, from the anxiety of lacking social services and green areas to the anxiety of losing existing and proposed social service areas in the future because of increasing rent values. UTPs rest on the idea that horizontal growth with high-rise apartment blocks gives the possibility of leaving large areas for green areas and social services. But this decreases the building density not the population density. UTPs increase the populations of the gecekondu areas as in the case of IDPs, so they put pressure on space, not only in the project areas but in the whole district as well (Fig. 6). Yet, transformation of city sections makes pressure on nearby areas by increasing land values. For instance, the new settlement pattern of Dikmen Valley Project put pressure of transformation on an adjacent area, Yıldızevler. This exampe shows that any transformation project forces rearrangements in the urban macroform. This can be seen in the adjacent areas as in the case of Yıldızevler or in the retransformative activities of the early gecekondu areas transformed before. On the other hand, in the case of Dikmen Valley, an area preserved for public use in the original pro399
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
Figure 6 Transformation in Aktasˆ-Atilla neighborhood. Source: Municipality of Alty´ ndag˘
ject, was transformed into a luxury housing area as a result of rent increases in the valley after the project. This example proves the fact that social goals can easily be given up to meet economic expectations and the original project aims can be subject to retransformation with external effects of renewal in time. Urban transformation projects, each designed in a part 400
of the city, do not possess an integrative planning effort, thus leading to the approval of partial plans without a decision for their effects on the overall urban form. However, such a scheme can put these projects on a city section to analyze their mutual interaction not only on physical space but on socio-economic development patterns.
Models of Urban Transformation: O Du¨ ndar
References Bu¨ yu¨ kgo¨ c¸ men, A (1997). Squatter neighborhoods with improvement plans in 1984–1989 period, PhD Thesis presented to the Middle East Technical University, Ankara. ¨ (1996) The Dikmen Valley Squatter Housing Renewal Du¨ ndar, O Project in Ankara. Ekistics 63(376/377/378), 116–126. ¨ (1998). Two different approaches to the renewal of Du¨ ndar, O squatter housing areas in Turkey, ENHR 98, Cardiff.
Ege Urban Transformation Project Research and Evaluation Report (1996). Municipality of Mamak, Ankara. Go¨ ksu, A F (1991) Portakal Gıˆgegˆ i Vadisi Kentel Gelis¸me Projesi Raporu, Ankara. S¸ enyapılı, T and Tu¨ rel, A (1996). Ankara’da Gecekondu Olus¸ um Su¨ reci ve Ruhsatlı Konut Sunumu, Batıbirlik Yayınları No 1, Ankara. S¸ enyapılı, T (1998) Cumhuriyet’in 75. yılı, gecekondunun 50. Yılı. In 75 Yılda Deg˘ is¸en Kent ve Mimarlık, (ed.) Y Sey., pp 301– 316. Tu¨ rkiye I˙s¸ Bankası Ku¨ ltu¨ r Yayınları, Tarih Vakfı, Istanbul.
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