Abstract
AbstractContrary to trends in many European countries, income inequality in Turkey, measured by the Gini coefficient, has declined between 1994 and 2014, with a small but consistent increase since then. Turkish income inequality is among the highest in OECD countries, with levels not lower than 0.4. This chapter will examine residential socio-economic segregation in Istanbul against the backdrop of this relatively stable and high-income inequality. The chapter shows signs that residential segregation is on the rise. Istanbul has undergone a radical change in the 2000s thanks to active intervention by the state in the real estate market by opening up large pieces of land in the outskirts and gentrifying inner-city areas once occupied by unauthorized settlements that once were home to the poor. Dynamics of urban development, fueled by rapid urban sprawl in peri-urban areas and ceaseless gentrification of inner-city areas, gave way to diverse patterns of segregation depending on the already existing divisions and physical geography of cities. Given the lack of neighbourhood level data on either occupations or income, this chapter analyses segregation through indices based on fertility and educational level, which we know from detailed household microdata are closely correlated with income. On the basis of 2000 and 2017 neighbourhood data, we show that in Istanbul, there is a clearly visible pattern where the poor are progressively pushed further to the city limits, while some parts of built-up areas once home to middle classes, were recaptured by the poor. The result in some parts of the city is a juxtaposition of seemingly conflicting patterns: parts of the inner city were reclaimed by the poor while some parts were gentrified led by the nascent urban elite. The urban periphery was partly occupied by the bourgeoning middle classes and was also home to the urban poor who were displaced by urban transformation projects.
Highlights
Ever since the first reliable studies were made on income inequality in the late 1960s, the Gini coefficient has not fallen below 0.4 except a few years in the early 2000s, making Turkey one of the most unequal countries in the OECD, and placing it somewhere between European countries with relatively low levels of inequality and Latin American countries where income inequality has been notoriously high
Starting with a summary of the basic contours of urban development in Turkey, the chapter discusses the problems of studying segregation with limited available data in Istanbul, where the physical geography has a strong impact on almost every urban process, including residential segregation
15 Residential Segregation in a Highly Unequal Society: Istanbul in the 2000s guaranteed that the ceaseless flux of newcomers would find a job and a shelter thanks to the networks of solidarity they set up, though the jobs they found were as shaky as the squatters they built up for themselves on vast state land, mostly at the periphery of cities; a populist-clientelist state apparatus, incapable of responding to the needs of these newcomers, that happily turned a blind eye, in exchange for their votes, to people who squat illegally on state land or who run informal businesses (Isık and Pınarcıoglu 2009)
Summary
Turkey is a land of vast and enduring inequalities. Ever since the first reliable studies were made on income inequality in the late 1960s, the Gini coefficient has not fallen below 0.4 except a few years in the early 2000s, making Turkey one of the most unequal countries in the OECD, and placing it somewhere between European countries with relatively low levels of inequality and Latin American countries where income inequality has been notoriously high. In the face of a state unwilling to take active measures to reduce inequality, the society devised many ingenious ways, especially in the urban labour and property markets, to cope with high levels of inequality and to keep at bay the tensions that may arise therefrom. Thanks to the innovative survival strategies of the urban poor, the problems that are often associated with high inequality and residential segregation went unnoticed for most of society. The 2000s have been frantic years in terms of urban development in all large cities in Turkey, a period when the mechanisms devised by the urban poor proved inefficient, and the state that had been a silent partner became an active agent in the housing and urban property market. Starting with a summary of the basic contours of urban development in Turkey, the chapter discusses the problems of studying segregation with limited available data in Istanbul, where the physical geography has a strong impact on almost every urban process, including residential segregation
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