Elsevier

Habitat International

Volume 95, January 2020, 102081
Habitat International

Sustainability of urban regeneration in Turkey: Assessing the performance of the North Ankara Urban Regeneration Project

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2019.102081Get rights and content

Abstract

The increasing environmental footprints of cities necessitated the integration sustainability principles into urban planning and development frameworks. The growing attention on urban sustainability also influenced the policy and the practice of urban regeneration. The quest for new methods for regenerating existing urban quarters in sustainable manners resulted in the concept of sustainable urban regeneration. The concept aims to develop urban regeneration projects in line with the three key pillars of sustainable development.

Since the turn of the new millennium, urban regeneration initiatives in Turkish cities have gained a new momentum, mainly due to the increasing interest by public and private sectors. As expected, squatters constituted one of the main focuses of the recent initiatives for urban regeneration. Nevertheless, the Turkish experience of urban regeneration differs from the international experiences in terms of the motivation behind and the scope of the projects. Despite the growing link between sustainability and urban regeneration in international practices, sustainability has not yet been a major motivation for urban regeneration practices in Turkey.

This research assesses the sustainability performance of one of the most prominent examples of squatter regeneration in Turkey, namely the North Ankara Urban Regeneration Project (NAURP). The project has been evaluated by means of an indicator-based methodology. The research indicates that the project's contribution to urban sustainability has been minimal and thus, further efforts are required to improve the sustainability performance of urban regeneration projects in Turkey. In the light of this finding, policy implications have been made to push sustainable urban regeneration agenda in Turkey.

Introduction

The dynamics of urbanization have changed over time based on the changes in social and economic organization of the world's nations. Industrialization has increased the concentration of socio-economic organizations in cities, thus leading to rapid growth of urban population in the last century. Today, majority of the world's population and major economic activities are located in cities. The urbanization experience in Turkey can also be linked with industrialization, which gained momentum after 1950. Rapid industrialization has led to rapid urbanization as masses have flowed from rural areas to cities. During the decade between 1950 and 1960, 1.5 million immigrants arrived into urban areas, nearly half of which targeted the four largest cities (Batuman, 2013).

In Turkey, one of the major consequences of rapid urbanization has been the mushrooming of illegal housing in peripheries of cities. The dominant form of illegal housing built and occupied by new but poor residents of Turkish cities was the squatters (gecekondu).1 Since the 1950s, squatter settlements, although significant changes have taken place in their development and occupation patterns, have been an important component of the urban fabric in Turkish cities. The main reason for squatter development was the inadequacy of local and national administrations to meet the increasing demand for housing. The new residents of Turkish cities had to produce their squatter neighborhoods mainly with community support and possibilities of informal economy. Over time, squatter settlements that differ from legally developed parts of cities in terms of not only physical appearance but also socio-economic and cultural manners have become an integral part of Turkish cities.

Ankara has been the first city in Turkey to experience squatter development (Batuman, 2013; Şenyapılı, 2004). In the late-1940s, around 60,000 people, who were working in marginal sectors, were estimated to reside in squatters (Şenyapılı & Türel, 1996). According to the population census data in 1950, urban population in squatters were about 100,000 people in Ankara. Due to rapid increase in squatter development, the number of squatters in Ankara was estimated to rise from 70,000 units in 1960 to 240,000 units in 1980 (Batuman, 2013). By 1980s, squatters have become a common problem not only in Ankara but also in almost all Turkish cities. More than half of urban population were known to be residing in squatters in the largest cities of the country after 1980.

Squatter areas, which emerged as a self-help solution to the housing problem, have become problematic parts of Turkish cities due to unsafe and unhealthy living conditions as well as poverty situations and social segregation. So, transformation of squatter settlements has always been an important issue in Turkey's urbanization agenda. Since the mid-2000s, the national and local governments have started to develop urban regeneration projects on inner city quarters including particularly the squatter areas. Urban regeneration projects on squatter areas were justified based on poor living and environmental conditions prevailing in squatter neighborhoods. Therefore, the recent squatter regeneration initiatives aimed to regenerate squatter settlements in more sustainable manners. However, existing research still do not suffice to indicate whether or not urban regeneration projects carried out in Turkey during the last decade have produced sustainable urban quarters. Sustainability of urban regeneration projects is yet to be assessed in a comprehensive manner. This research sets out to address this gap via evaluating the sustainability performance of a significant example of recent urban regeneration projects in Turkey.

The empirical focus of the research was on the North Ankara Urban Regeneration Project (hereafter NAURP), which is the largest squatter regeneration in Turkey in the last decade. The NAURP is a significant example not only because of its size and scope but also a special law was enacted to ease the development and implementation processes. This research aims to assess the sustainability performance of the NAURP via an indicator-based approach. The paper highlights the positive and negative aspects of the regeneration process from a sustainability perspective. More to that, the paper also makes suggestions on how to make squatter regeneration more sustainable in Turkish cities.

Section snippets

Evolution of sustainable urban regeneration

Urban systems are complicated and dynamic systems. They are the prime factors which affect socio-economic and physical changes in almost all nations. Therefore, regeneration of urban quarters, which has become a major instrument of urban policy after 1980s, cannot be explained only with reference to physical development of cities. Urban regeneration encompasses all key aspects of urban development including psychical issues.

There are many definitions of urban regeneration in planning

Indicator-based sustainability assessment for urban regeneration

Whether or not regeneration projects deliver substantial benefits for sustainability need to be monitored and ensured by means of project performance evaluation. Thus, in the context of sustainable urban regeneration, an important question is how to assess the sustainability performance of urban regeneration projects. Yet, there is no single or simple answer to this question. There are numerous studies and research on development of tools and frameworks for sustainability assessment. However,

Historical background and key information about the project

Following the opening of Esenboğa Airport, northern parts of Ankara gained popularity and became a hotspot for urban development of any sort. In this process, the northern part of the city began to be occupied by illegal developments, and squatter housing areas expanded rapidly (Yüksel, 2007). Since the beginning of 1980s, several urban development plans have been developed by Keçiören and Altındağ Municipalities to deal with the squatter problem in the area. However, these plans and associated

Conclusion

Since the mid-2000s, urban regeneration has received significant attention by public authorities in Turkey and a series of legal arrangements have been made to promote regeneration projects. In this process, squatters constitute the main focus of regeneration initiatives. Unlike the international experiences where sustainability has been an explicit concern for regeneration processes, sustainability is no more than a weak and an implicit aim of the recent regeneration projects in the Turkish

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