A Divided Capital: Residential Segregation In Ankara

Abstract

Turkey has undergone large-scale structural changes in social, political, and economic spheres in 2000s. In changing political climate of 2000s, not only social and political geographies, but also residential patterns of cities have been subject to abrupt changes. The development of construction sector reached a speed never seen before in country’s urbanisation history. Growing numbers of transformation and renewal projects took place mainly in older and historical central areas and former gecekondu sites of many greater cities. The relationship of new “upper” and “lower” classes both with rest of society and city has also radically changed. But, despite dynamism of this new era, our knowledge about extent of this transformation process is still relatively poor. Our knowledge on bases, scale and possible impacts of this transformation is still limited and partial. On these grounds, this article attempts to understand of this transformation process in year of 2000 through socio-economic residential segregation in capital city of Turkey, Ankara, where this transformation process is heavily felt. It is claimed that as one of most debated issues in Turkish public agenda, examining segregation in analytical ways can provide useful insights and valuable clues as to understanding socio-economic structure of cities. The findings of study show that Ankara is a highly divided city in socio-economic lines and urban dynamics of recent years are highly correlated with characteristic divisions of city. The study, in this sense, not only provides an extended look into segregation dynamics of city, but also sheds light on the roots of this active and dynamic period of 2000s, and thereby reveals last picture of city before great transformation . Key words: Socio-economic segregation, residential segregation, status groups, transformation, Ankara.