Sustainability of new urbanism: Cases from Istanbul

Abstract

Today, the uncontrolled urban growth in Istanbul has been far from addressing the issues of equity, social justice, employment, poverty and healthy urban environment. As acknowledged by an emerging body of literature, coping with the problems of unplanned and unsustainable urbanisation requires a thorough change in the way decision-making of central and local governments. Nevertheless, the new urban projects of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality to turn Istanbul into a `global city' do not seem that they are likely to cope with the unsustainable urbanization. This study intends to investigate the socio-economic and environmental impacts of the urban transformation projects for Istanbul and seeks for the practical solutions for preventing the problems associated with the implementation of them. For this purpose, the study focuses on the implementation of one of these urban transformation projects, Basibuyuk Project. The lack of public involvement and environmental considerations are addressed as the main sources of problems. Within this respect, the study suggests the use of instruments for sustainable plan-making which promote a more transparent and accountable decision-making by the involvement of local community in Basibuyuk and preservation of biophysical attributes in the project's area.