Urban Transformation as a Desiring Machine: The Role of Information Flows during Urban Transformation in Turkey’s Informal Settlements

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate that information activates the desire flows and makes the urban transformation machine work. It focuses on understanding how urban transformation currently works as a Deleuzian machine, rather than focusing on how it is implemented. The main focus is to map the trajectory of the word flows through the narratives. First of all technical knowledge flow through media texts and official public statements take their place in the urban transformation process. Technicians and scientists inform that we need to implement the urban transformation process. Then the media starts to glorify the urban transformation process representing how beautiful the new houses are. Finally in informal neighborhoods (which are entitled as gecekondu in Turkish urban system) the word flows transform into rumor flows. These rumor flows, which are ignored during the planning process, channel desire flows, making certain spaces more or less attractive and affect the whole transformation process.