2000-2017 yılları arasında Türkiye'de kentsel dönüşüm siyaseti; Kartal sanayi alanı dönüşümü vakası

Abstract

Bu tez, 2000'li yılların başında Türkiye'de deneyimlenen kentsel dönüşüm siyasetinin dinamiklerini açıklamak amacıyla, Kartal sanayi alanı için geliştirilen kentsel dönüşüm projesini incelemektedir. Araştırma, proje süreçlerinin katılımcı gözlem yoluyla izlendiği niteliksel vaka analizi yöntemiyle gerçekleştirilmiştir. Proje, kentsel dönüşüm politikalarının henüz kurumsallaşmamış olduğu bir dönemde bir mega- proje olarak, kamu-özel işbirliği ile geliştirilen tipik bir neoliberal kentsel dönüşüm projesi örneğidir. Zaman içinde, kentsel dönüşüm uygulamalarının yaygınlaşmasına, bölgedeki mülk sahiplerinin isteğine ve çevredeki hızlı dönüşüm ve gelişime rağmen 2017 yılı itibari ile halen gerçekleşmemiştir ve belirsizlik içindedir. Bu süreç, kentsel dönüşümle ilgili siyasi çatışmaların niteliğine ilişkin zengin bir bilgi kaynağı oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada, neoliberal kent siyasetinin yerel ölçekte nasıl gerçekleştiğine ilişkin nedensel mekanizmalar, aktörlerin genel ekonomik ve siyasal davranışlarını belirleyen ilişkiler çerçevesinde tarif edilmiştir. Proje henüz gerçekleşmediğinden, genellenebilir sonuçlara ulaşmak amacıyla kısmen de olsa benzer vakalar ve politika uygulamaları ile kıyaslamalar ve ilişkilendirilmeler yapılmıştır. Türkiye'de kentsel dönüşüm politikalarının yaklaşık 15 yıllık yoğun deneme ve yanılma süreçleri ile kurumsallaşma içinde olduğu düşünülmektedir. Söz konusu kurumsallaşmanın temelinde, ekonomik liberalleşme ve küreselleşme programlarına uyum ile kent mekânının yatırım alanı olarak değerinin artması ve bu değerin paylaşımına ilişkin çatışmalar bulunmaktadır. Bu süreç, beraberinde yoksul kesimlerin borçlanması ve mülksüzleşmesi, altyapı sorunları, mekânsal ayrışma ve doğal alanların kaybı gibi sorunları da kapsamını değiştirerek yeniden üretmeye devam etmiştir. Merkezi yönetimin yetkilerinin arttığı bu dönemde, kent siyaseti dinamikleri, kentsel dönüşüm politikalarına ilişkin mutabakatın oluşumu ile ilişkili olarak incelenmiştir. Kartal vakasında ve İstanbul genelinde izlenen dinamikler, bu mutabakat sürecinde aktörler arasında yaşanan çatışmaların ölçekleri ve çeşitliliği ile işbirliklerinin kırılgan yapısı ve çelişkilerine ilişkin bilgileri açığa çıkarmaktadır. Sonuç olarak, tez kapsamında Türkiye'deki kentsel dönüşüm politikaları ile ekonomik yapının dönüşümü arasındaki ilişkinin değişiminin, dönüşüm sürecinde yer alan yerel aktörlerin davranışları ile karşılıklı etkileşimine dair çıkarımlarda bulunulmuştur. Kent siyaseti ile ilgili aktörler arasındaki ilişkileri düzenleyen farklı yerel yönetişim modelleri gelişmiştir. Bu yerel yönetişim modellerinin karakterinin oluşumunda, devletin girdiği mali krizlere çözüm arayışları, hükümetin siyasal desteğini sağlamak ve sürdürmek üzere şekillendirdiği yeniden dağıtım politikaları ve mekânın üretimine ilişkin resmi ve gayri resmi kurumsal yapıların geçmişten gelen özellikleri etkili olmuştur. Son olarak, deneme yanılma süreçleri sonucu hâkim olan kentsel dönüşüm siyasetinin kısıtlarına ve olanaklarına ilişkin bir değerlendirme yapılmıştır. Bu tez çalışması ile kentsel dönüşüm siyasetinin desteğiyle küresel kapitalizmin yerelde nasıl yeniden üretildiğine ilişkin tartışmalara katkıda bulunmak amaçlanmıştır.

This thesis examines the urban transformation project developed for Kartal industrial area in an attempt to explain the political dynamics of urban transformation in Turkey in the first decades of the twenty-first century. The study uses qualitative case study method with which all stages of the project has been monitored through participatory observation. Kartal Urban Transformation Project (KUTP) was launched as a mega-project by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and developed through public-private partnership approach in 2006 before an institutional infrastructure for urban transformation policies was established in Turkey. It was considered as a typical example of neoliberal urban transformation. Since 2006, the planning process give way to conflicts in between the actors who have direct or indirect interests about the development of the site. The master plan for the project site revised three times. The plan decisions about the urban form, construction density and social amenities has changed drastically. Meanwhile, laws and regulations related to urban planning and redevelopment has changed and the role and power of central government in reproduction of urban space became predominant. The reflections of these changes were observed in the project site. Several parts were extracted from the original planning boundary, and their plans are being prepared by central government institutions. Despite the proliferation of urban transformation practices around the country and especially in Istanbul, the enthusiasm of the property owners in the project area and rapid change and transformation in the surrounding districts, the project has not been realized as of 2017 and its future is still uncertain. The project offers a rich source of information on political conflicts related to urban transformation in Turkey. Since the project is not yet realized, comparisons and associations are made with partially similar cases and policy applications in order to reach conclusions that can be generalized. The data derived from the main case and the secondary cases showed that, the role and share of central government institutions, priorities of the landowners, the values and norms of bureaucrats, strategies of mayors and members of city councils, agenda of urban opposition groups and profit-driven behaviours of real-estate investors are all intermingled in the process of urban transformation. Within the conceptual framework that defines the dynamics of urban space production in relation to political economy and urban politics, the study describes causal mechanisms related to the way neoliberal urban policy is realized and reproduced at the local level. Within this scope, the thesis is comprised of six chapters. The Introduction chapter is about situating Kartal Urban Transformation Project (KUTP) as a research case about urban transformation politics in Turkey. It discusses the capacity of the case in explaining the mechanisms of neoliberal urban transformation politics. Research aim and questions are defined in relation to the conceptual apparatus and methodology in this chapter. In the Second Chapter the historical background of the activities and the actors that are involved in the KUTP are described in the context of Turkey becoming a capitalist country. Economic priorities and political interactions of the actors and spatial development dynamics of the area previous to the project is also discussed in this chapter. The following three chapters examine three periods in the timeline of the project. The periods are defined in relation to the turning points that changed the course of events. In each of these chapters, collaborations and conflicts between actors around the project are defined in the context of constitutive economic and political developments, changing urban regulations and academic debates around them. The Third Chapter gives an account of the emergence of the KUTP as a flag-ship, municipal entrepreneurship project in the context of the economic stability and growth discourse of the 2005-2009 period. In this period, new urban governance initiatives and increasing number of urban regeneration projects pave the way for new conflicts about the values embedded in and around urban space. The design process and partnership model of the KUTP project created local conflicts among architects, landowners and bureaucrats, and project partners. In turn, unresolved local conflicts concerning the project ended up with the political failure of local mayor in the elections in 2009. The Fourth Chapter elaborates on the connection between the dwindling of opposition against the project, causing urban transformation to become socially accepted in between 2009-2013. During this period, urban transformation discourses co-developed by the central government and the construction sector convinced home-owners to be part of the transformation process in order to gain their share from the produced rent. Yet, nation-wide conflicts caused by urban and economic policies and authoritarianization on the one hand, corruption accusations towards central government on the other, escalated the urban opposition movement in general. Therefore, in Kartal despite the efforts of the newly elected local government of main opposition party to facilitate urban transformation in participatory way, certain elements of the metropolitan scale opposition were able to get the planning stages of the project cancelled. The Fifth Chapter is about 2013-2017 period. This period was dominated by electoral politics along with economic recession and power conflicts within government. The organizational structure for urban redevelopment and construction processes became clearer while the scale of projects got smaller. Considering large construction projects, other than mega infrastructures, only few of the planned urban transformation projects were realised in Istanbul. Despite the visible consequences of urban redevelopment on urban environment, such as construction pollution, infrastructure deficiencies and gentrification, individual benefits of urban transformation became widely appreciated by the society. Although expectations from the KUTP increased in this period, under the influence of power conflicts within the metropolitan city council as well as the current economic and political conditions, it has been a period of uncertainty for the local actors involved in KUTP, ended with a final approved master plan proposing decreased construction rights and more green areas. The final chapter elaborates on urban transformation policy in Turkey in relation to economic transformation as well as changes in state-society relations and describes the role of urban transformation for the development of the state and the capital. Local governance models that are developed among local actors and conflicts concerning these models are discussed in the context of economic and social changes. In conclusion, the relationship between economic and social conflicts and conflicts concerning the urban policy governance model is revealed and the limitations and potentials of the predominant urban transformation politics are evaluated. During 15 years long intensive trial and error process, consecutive local governance models regulated the relations among actors involved in urban transformation politics in Turkey. These models can be considered as a product of the institutionalization process of urban policies. Parallel to the economic liberalization and global integration programs at national level, the increase of the value of urban space as an asset for investment and the conflicts around the sharing of the revenues gained, forms the basis of the institutionalization of this process. Despite the problems that are reproduced during the course of institutionalization, such as debt, dispossession, infrastructure problems, spatial segregation and loss of natural landscapes, the existing building stock is being redeveloped ceaselessly. This process should be understood in terms of the formation of a consensus on urban transformation policies in relation to the autoritarianization of the state. Construction sector being the leading force of capital accumulation, the character of the local governance is primarily shaped by central government, seeking solution for its own fiscal crises through appropriating its share from the revenue and maintaining its political support through redistributing it. The dynamics that were observed, specifically in the case of Kartal and generally in Istanbul, offer information on the scale and the diversity of conflicts between the actors of this consensus, and the fragilities and contradictions inherent to the collaborations that created it. This shows that other conflicts about the form of organizational structures, norms and values related to the production of urban space are decisive, either. Therefore, the ideological and material construction of rent seeking urban transformation policies is built on inherited structures of formal and informal institutions about the production of urban space. The study aims to contribute to debates around how global capitalism is locally reproduced with the help of the politics of urban transformation. The process constantly generates new contradictions concerning daily life as well as contributing to heightened social coercion, injustice and inequality.