Yildiz Technical University

Faculty Member, City and Regional Planning

Dr. (PhD)

Yildiz Technical University Faculty of Architecture City and Regional Planning

Thesis Title: The Political Economy of Reorganization of Urban Space and Interventions on Urban Land Tenure - The Case of Mass Housing Administration (MHA) & Istanbul in Post-2000 Period

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Abstract

Real estate investments in Turkey, has been demonstrating a considerable momentum, especially in the post-2000 period. In particular, the ‘large scale/mega projects', concentrated at the periphery, play a significant role as the urban space takes shape.

This thesis intends to interpret and explain the spatial reflections of the neoliberal transformation Turkey has undergone in the post-2000 period, with an urban political economy perspective. Accordingly, David Harvey's theory of Spatio-Temporal Fixes and Accumulation by Dispossession approach were taken as the primary reference point for this explanation.

An overview with the aforementioned theoretical perspective reveals that the capital has tended to diffuse the over-accumulation, generated in the wake of the 2000-2001 economic crisis, in the real estate market. The course of the process causes the capital holders require new profitable investment locations for ‘large scale projects’. Large - unfragmented lands suited for such scale of investments are relatively easy to find at the urban periphery, however, these raw lands are not fit for profitable investments by their use value, which as a results necessitates these lands to be developed with increased height limits and made available to the investors through a zoning process.

Consequently, a regulatory instrument equipped with qualifications and intervention power to perform these functions is needed.

The projects completed in Istanbul by the Mass Housing Administration (MHA), which was restructured to posses these necessities in the post-2000 period were evaluated in this context. Based on Harvey's Accumulation by Dispossession approach, these investments are assumed to have been made mostly on state lands and the property records for the 2002 – 2011 period have been examined in a typical location, where MHA investments are concentrated.

Furthermore, the mechanism of MHA’s intervention on the land tenure and property rights (LTPR) is scrutinized with respect to the particular standpoints of the players involved in the land tenure relations.

The results obtained, indicate that the outlook of the investments demonstrate a composite land ownership structure. However, a closer look at the land ownership structure and LTPR relations reveals, in contrast, that the projects implemented by MHA are in fact mere interventions to the land ownership structure, causing the state and less powerful players ‘lose’ property in effect while the powerful players ‘acquire’ them, which yields an inequitable distribution of wealth.

Keywords: Urban Political Economy, Reorganization of Urban Space, Urban Land Tenure, MHA.

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