TOKİ's search for a method for urban transformation

Urban transformation practices in Turkey have recently become one of the most important subjects, or problem areas, among developments related to urbanization. Among the most frequently voiced criticisms is that these practices are generally carried out through the unilateral decisions of the central administration and do not include sufficient dialogue with the parties directly or indirectly affected by them. Yet a framework in which these vital practices in the city, which are directly related to the concept of politics, completely exclude political participation is, frankly, a serious problem area in the name of democracy.

But there is one more reality: the problems that cities have brought with them and accumulated since a certain period call for urgent surgery. Housing quality and city planning in cities are extremely poor, and this poor quality was in the past too the result of either unilateral practices or neglect by central administrations. The urgency of removing the distortions that produce every kind of urban problem today, however, can lead to a different mistake. As urgent housing need turns housing into a matter of serial-standard production, it has a transformative effect on living spaces and therefore on culture.

These effects, without doubt, open a very broad field for sociological studies as well. It is clear that this is a problem inherited from the past of modernization peculiar to Turkey, but in the new phases of modernization, it is already quite late to enter a search for a new path and style.

The work carried out recently within the scope of urban transformation, particularly by TOKİ, is changing the skyline of cities in many places. Here we see that TOKİ, as we have mentioned before, has played the role of a very important actor in the recent visible development of Anatolian cities. It is a fact that TOKİ has created an original model and brand on Turkey's behalf both with its urban transformation practices and in meeting urgent housing needs.

In ten years TOKİ has not only produced 500,000 housing units, but has also paved the way for private sector housing production. Thanks to these housing production conditions, it can comfortably be said that an important sociological development has been recorded from lower income groups, who can become homeowners relatively much more easily, toward becoming middle class. TOKİ's work has a very important share in the economic development recorded over ten years and in social welfare reaching a certain level. Because housing is one of the most important indices of social welfare.

However, as we said at the beginning, one of the criticisms TOKİ has encountered most in its first period of producing 500 thousand units is that it did not establish a dialogue with the local people and the relevant professional bodies, particularly in urban transformation practices. For this reason the housing type produced became entirely serial and uniform. It is said that this both imposes a standard life that ignores the cultural and social characteristics of the people living in it, and that, with vertical constructions containing no architectural creativity, it makes no contribution to urban aesthetics.

For the second 500 thousand units target they have set, TOKİ's managers say that they take these criticisms into account and that from now on they want to work in maximum dialogue with all the elements in the areas of implementation, taking into consideration the geographical, climatic, and cultural conditions of the area. Thus the aim is for a different architecture to be developed for each implementation region and, ultimately, for urban transformation or planning to be developed so as to include local participation as much as possible.

In this direction, the first example of work is being done within the framework of an urban transformation project planned for some neighborhoods in Mersin. In the past week, a workshop was held in Mersin for this purpose under the title "Search for a Method for the Healthy Conduct of Urban Transformation Projects in Turkey." At the workshop, a model prepared by TOKİ for the urban transformation work to be carried out in Mersin was presented not as a final and completed project but as a proposal. It was stated that this project proposal could be revised according to criticisms that might come from the local people.

At the workshop, the problem statements and solution proposals of participants, particularly those from Mersin and from the implementation area (from the Çay, Çilek, and Özgürlük neighborhoods), were recorded one by one and converted into a revision proposal format for the project. Truly, the work is a sign of an extremely hopeful approach for TOKİ's subsequent practices. Urban transformation is a must, but that it should take place in dialogue instead of being imposed from above was a development expected from the second-period TOKİ practices.

There is fierce opposition, even resistance, from some organizations and civil society representatives who resist urban transformation in these areas. TOKİ, cutting these organization representatives out, had a survey conducted directly aimed at the public. In this survey, interestingly, it was seen that neighborhood residents were willing at a level close to eighty percent toward an urban transformation led by TOKİ.

However, those who come forward and speak on behalf of the neighborhood residents are trying to suppress, camouflage, and block this desire among the people in the name of democratic autonomy. As a result of these pressures, many people invited from the neighborhood to the workshop organized by TOKİ, who had at first announced with great enthusiasm that they would come, gave up coming at the last moment.

For this reason the workshop took place in an environment in which their views could not be evaluated. Likewise, it also drew attention that representatives from the chamber of engineers and architects, who accuse TOKİ of precisely not taking the people or themselves into account, did not attend such a meeting although they were invited.