THE OTHERNESS OF ISTANBUL, THREE INSTANCES OF GENTRIFICATION
ايوو پكچ، فرشته اسدزادهIvo Pekeč, Fereshteh Assadzadeh
The economic policies governing contemporary globalised cities result in very specific spatial phenomena in varying manifesta- tions. One key aspect of these phenomena is the coexistence of the rapid economic growth of these cities and extreme social inequalities, resulting in spatial segregation. The urban Other, the unwanted and the failed, is seen in public discourse as a burden to the image and growth of the city and consequently as some- thing that has to be expulsed from urban life. As Istanbul, a city with a glorious urban history, is gain- ing more and more momentum among competing global cities around the world, its rapid and in many aspects uncontrollable growth leads to the development of many phenomena of urban alterity everywhere in its urban fabric, from the periphery to the core. This article will illuminate three examples of a confrontation with the Other in the process of gentrification in three different inner city neighbourhoods of Istanbul. This exploration of Istanbul begins in Istiklal Caddesi, its most prominent avenue, a familiar name even to those unfamiliar with the city. Istiklal Caddesi and its adjacent neighbourhoods form the heart of Istanbul’s cultural and leisure activities. Istiklal offers everything imaginable, to tourist and local alike, shops for buying any kind of consumer good, close proximity to touristic sights, museums and art galleries, clubs and bars, restaurants and cafes, all of which are able to satisfy any taste, from the vulgar to the sophisticated. Alongside its nostalgic elements, the red trams circulating the pavement of the pedestrian area, its street cats and street musicians, the overbearing police presence and un- derlying threat of terrorism, Istikal Caddesi reinforces a flawless, almost curated and staged, narrative of a modern oriental city in its visitors memories. Walking upwards Istiklal Caddesi towards Taksim Meydanı, in- famous for the Gezi Park protests in 2013, one can choose to go either to the left or right, only to discover two completely different worlds, despite their close proximity. They share many invisible commonalities and are undergoing a similar process of gentrifica- tion, they are only at very different stages of completion. Istiklal Caddesi forms a line of division and a border between these two worlds, one currently characterised by expulsion and one by fully finished gentrification.
Expulsion Towards the right, in the southeast of Istiklal Caddesi, one finds Cihangir Mahallesi, Istanbul’s textbook example of what is com-
monly understood and expected from a gentrified neighbourhood. Labelled as the SOHO of Istanbul, it is a beautiful and historic dis- trict, filled with art shops and galleries, hip cafes, restored wooden houses that look too impeccable to still pass as historic, and posh restaurants. One encounters mostly a young, good looking and hip demographic, among them many expats, completing the cool image that looms over Cihangir. Cihangir is a neighbourhood inside the bigger district of Beyoğlu, which forms the european city centre, framed by the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. During the Ottoman Empire Beyoğlu represented the westernised part of Constantinople. It was highly cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, housing both the city’s social elite, among them many foreign businessmen and embas- sies, and its minorities, namely Greeks, Armenians and Jews, next to each other. In the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire Istanbul, now the unwanted former capital of a fallen em- pire, lost its dominant status to Ankara, the newly formed capital of the Turkish Republic founded in 1922, representing the secular and modernised self of the nation. Many of its international inhab- itants left. This process climaxed in the 1950s, under the influ- ence of an increasing Turkish nationalism, when with the help of many anti-minority laws, among them a anti-minority property tax, and violent anti Greek riots, most of Istanbul’s minority popula- tion was forced to leave the country and was dispossessed by the state of their property. Beyoğlu and its formerly cosmopolitan and upper class neighbourhoods were left largely abandoned and uninhabited by the late 1960s. Istanbul was successfully cleansed of its unwanted Other. As Turkey, and its biggest cities in particular, revitalised and began a renewed process of industrialisation, many new indus- trial sectors emerged, offering economic opportunities for a labour force that was not yet present in the cities. The by now empty neighbourhoods in Beyoğlu became the settlement of rural-urban migrants from eastern Anatolia, the new Other, coming to Istanbul looking for a better life. In this massive population shift these in- ner city neighbourhoods turned into mostly working class districts and slowly start to decay. In the 1980s the pedestrianisation of Istiklal Caddesi once again put Beyoğlu into the prime light of Istanbul and helped it re- gain much of its lost prominence and popularity. Artists, students and intellectuals slowly began to move to close by neighbour- hoods, namely Cihangir, driven by their interest in historic archi- tecture, affordable rents and the close proximity to Istiklal. Using
Bosphorus, positioned at an intersection of continents, Istanbul is marked by an internal divisiveness. (Photo by Ivo Pekeč) (تنگه بوسفور، شهر استانبول كه در تقاطع دو قاره واقع شده، در دل خود داراى شكاف است. )عكس از ايوو پكچ
Cihangir, Beyoğlu, the spirit of old Cihangir captured in the photos of the famous photographer, Ara Guller .جيهانگير، بى اغلو، روح محله جيهانگير قديم در عكس هاى عكاس مشهور آرا گولر ثبت شده است
their strong social network they encouraged and brought more and more people into the neighbourhood, causing a snowball effect. They started renovating the decayed houses to their old glory and began injecting the working class neighbourhood with their own lifestyle, the first art galleries and cafes followed soon after. As in every other typical case of gentrification, developers followed the artists and started investing in the housing market of Cihangir, hoping to maximise their profits. Gradually, hous- ing prices rose exorbitantly, forcing not only the original working class inhabitants but also the first generation of gentrifiers out, both now unable to afford the living costs and the working class increasingly estranged by the new lifestyle in their neighbour- hood. Some of them left by choice, other were dispossessed from their homes by force. The only the surface positive revitalisa- tion of the neighbourhood did not happen without resistance. To exemplify, there was an attack of local residents on an art gallery in Tophane, a neighbourhood close to Cihangir, in 2010. Today, Cihangir’s former residents are completely swapped out with Istanbul’s most affluent class and the neighbourhood is one of the most expensive in the city.
Limbo Going back to Istiklal Caddesi a adventurous spirit is tempted to also cross the pedestrian zone and move towards the left through one of the countless alleys leading towards Tarlabaşı Bulvarı. To get to Tarlabaşı, which is very difficult to access for visitors, one crosses a underpass to get to one of the neighbourhood’s main streets, under the suspicious gaze of prostitutes, transvestites and Syrian beggars. In absolute contrast to the right side of Istik- lal, Tarlabaşı is a neighbourhood of equally old urban fabric, his- torically highly valuable, but is now largely in a dilapidated state - it has become a ruinous inner city slum. It houses a wide range of people, from Kurdish rural migrants that came here forced out because of insecurity and war, illegal immigrants and refugees from Syria, Iraq and many African countries and until recently even illegal Iranian immigrants. Most of the residents of Tarlabaşı are here without any legal residency or official work permits. they coexist and live squeezed together in minuscule apartments and work unofficial and often times illegal jobs. Everyone that is con-
sidered the unwanted Other or simply an eyesore to the centre of Istanbul has found their home here. An invisible but perceivable border separates Tarlabaşı from the posh, hip and touristic that one finds on the right side of Istiklal. Tarlabaşı, similar to its immediate neighbour Cihangir, used to be the home of Istanbul’s many minorities. A wave of expul- sions beginning in the 1950s made space for rural-urban migrants settling in the city centre. Despite very similar circumstances and analogous high potential the gentrification process that happened in Cihangir never took place in Tarlabaşı the same way. On a first glance, to someone uninitiated to the events happening in Tarlabaşı, the neighbourhood seems to still be the inner city slum it has been for the past decades, there are however massive renovation and regeneration plans being applied to the neigh- bourhood. In recent years very cheap rents have driven some students, artists and expats to live here for its proximity to many important hubs of Istanbul, despite the undesirable circumstances surrounding the neighbourhood. The state, aware of the possible high profit that expanding the commercialised city centre would bring, has stepped in and granted investors to speed up the process of gentrification in Tarlabaşı. Consequently, in contrast to Cihangir, the process of gentrification in Tarlabaşı did not start gradually with people slowly moving here and renovating houses, but was executed with the iron fist of the state’s power and by force of law, for example by starting the dispossession of its residents from their property and moving them to newly built social housing projects called TOKI on the fringe of Istanbul. The process of expulsion, that happened once before in the 1950s, is repeating itself, as a new Unwanted Other that has to be ex- pulsed to make room for the economically advantaged is defined, with the difference that now the expulsion happens purely by class and economic status rather than by nationality and origin. As the centre needs to expand, for profit and for improving the image of Istanbul, Tarlabaşı was selected for the construction of luxurious housing projects and redevelopment, making even the most undesirable neighbourhood of the city profitable. This process is justified by deliberately constructed media representations of Tarlabaşı as a hub of social disorder, criminal activity and as a threat to the city at large. This state induced
Tarlabaşı, Beyoğlu, the contrasting and untouched fabric of Tarlabaşı at the core of Istanbul (Photo by Ivo Pekeč) (ترلباشى، بى اغلو، بافت متمايز و دست نخورده محله ترلباشى در قلب استانبول )عكس از ايوو پكچ
Taksim, Beyoğlu, urban mega-projects wiping away historic neighborhoods and expulsing their working class residents (Photo by Ivo Pekeč)
Kuzguncuk, Üsküdar, the predominantly stable process of soft gentrification in Kuzguncuk (Image from Google Street View)
پانوشت ها: 1- Gentrification 2- Toki
hostility towards the residents has not gone without massive tensions and even violent conflict. Tarlabaşı was among the is- sues politicised during the Gezi Park protests in 2013. The urban development in Tarlabaşı is currently still underway and has not been stopped, despite all the protest against its execution.
Coexistence Another example that is very similar in key initial aspects to Cihangir and Tarlabaşı but lead to a very different outcome is Kuzguncuk, a very small neighbourhood in Üsküdar, on the Asian side of Istanbul. The neighbourhood is isolated between vast open green spaces and the Bosphorus to the west. Ap- proaching it one doesn’t expect a neighbourhood of this kind. Still very central, it is characterised by for Istanbul untypically small houses, with a certain small town aura surrounding it. Kuzguncuk is a neighbourhood that has both hip cafes and galleries next to old traditional grocery stores and workshops. The demographic is highly mixed, all age groups and social classes are represented, artists find themselves among the working classes. On a first glance a visitor might assume that the neighbourhood is at the beginning stages of gentrification, but it has been in a process of gentrification for over 35 years, while remaining relatively stable. Like Tarlabaşı and Cihangir, Kuzguncuk had a very strong multi-ethnic history that is still visible in its architecture today. An Armenian church, a Jewish cemetery and a mosque coexist and stand next to each other. Kuzguncuk was characterised by a very harmonious life between Jews, Armenians, Greeks and a small Muslim population until, as in the two other examples, a wave of expulsions in the 50s and 60s led to most of its original residents to be replaced by rural-urban migration. Kuzguncuk has undergone a process of soft gentrification, causing much less negative effects compared to Cihangir and Tarlabaşı. Kuzguncuk transformation began with the initiative of one sole architect, Cengiz Bektaş, who was attracted by the neighbourhood’s multicultural historic implications, who starting in 1978 began restoring houses in Kuzgunzuk’s Uryanizade Sokağı, with the aim to restore the tolerance and harmony that its historic narrative symbolises. Eventually Bektaş friends, and other intel- lectuals and academics were attracted to the neighbourhood and started moving there. Most likely due to its relatively isolated location, the entire process of gentrification in Kuzguncuk was spared state interference, as it doesn’t benefit from a neoliberal transformation like the two inner city examples. The gentrification process happened solely by the initiative of a few individuals, like it did in Cihangir. In Kuzguncuk the new residents tried to consciously integrate themselves into the old structure without disrupting it and causing spatial segregation as it has happened in Cihangir. The rental prices remained relatively stable, almost nobody had to move out by force or was alienated as a conse- quence. Both parties benefited by the arrival of the affluent group, the neighbourhood was revitalised and upgraded to the benefit of everyone. Kuzguncuk is a good example of a successfully embraced and inclusive urban alterity (despite the fact that very few minorities actually remain there). However, even in Kuzguncuk the gentrification process has not passed without leaving negative marks. There are increasing, albeit low scale, tensions between the residents, causing rips in the social fabric, due to more and more rapid changes. Suspi- cions and fear directed towards the intellectual class moving into the neighbourhood is on the rise. This has increased in recent years, as positive representations of the neighbourhood in the media and television industry, starting with Perihan Abla in (1986) and more recently Ekmek Teknesi (2002), have left a romanti- cized image of the neighbourhood in the mind of the public, which in return has provided a marketing effect on Kuzguncuk, spiking the real estate markets interest. In addition later gentrifiers are also increasingly less concerned with renovating Kuzguncuk traditionally wooden houses, which are difficult to maintain, but with rebuilding them with cheaper materials and fake wooden facades. The originally very careful and successful gentrification process is at threat.