Urban renewal in working class areas in Istanbul: De-industrialization and urban renewal in Beykoz - Paşabahçe Istanbul

Abstract

There is a parallel between the production and reproduction of the cities and capitalism. As Lefebvre pointed out once, on the global level capital is reproducing itself either by occupying or producing a space fit for its existence, restoration and renewal. In Istanbul capital is producing itself by occupying the environment and the urban land by capturing, controlling and renewing.

Beykoz-Paşabahçe has been an industrial area near Bosphorus with three important factories, Glass-Bottle (Paşabahçe Şişe-Cam), Leather-Shoe (Beykoz Deri Kundura) and Alcohol (Tekel) for more than 70 years, founded as a result of the industrialization movement of the Republican era.

The region has been a typical working class residence area. There is a tendency of de-industrialization in urban areas of Turkey, especially of Istanbul. Discussions on the privatization, and closures of the factories started in 1980s; there were struggles in 1990s, for social and economic rights, against layoffs, and against closures of the factories in the basin. The factories in Beykoz-Paşabahçe closed in a small period 2002 and 2005, and the neighborhood is changing radically since then turning out to be a deprivation area whereas living next door to upper class gated-communities in the higher elevations. There is high unemployment and increasing poverty in the area with increasing spatial segregation and the type of labor is changing from regular and organized work to an irregular and unorganized form. The existing working class culture is also changing through time. There is a process of radical urban renewal in the area that will change the profile of the residences.

In this process the labor is removed out of the existing neighborhoods to the outer districts of the city as a result of neoliberal urban policies whereas finance and service sectors, gentrified neighborhoods take their places. The construction industries in the central parts of the city are removed, as a result the working class neighborhoods are displaced with the processes namely urban renewal.

In our research project we are dealing with the formation of the labor force in the area with migration from various parts of Anatolia doing oral history recordings about family histories. We are asking questions about the ways in which different generations were employed; about unemployment and the current forms of irregular/part time jobs and poverty. We are also trying to see the effects of the loss of public health/social security services and the missing of social and cultural/educational facilities those factories were providing for years.

Taking as an example of a specific working class neighborhood in Istanbul, we are trying to see the overall change in the urban structure before and after neoliberal policies are implemented; not only as a change in the urban space with new, modern buildings but also a change in the urban social structure and functioning with public spaces and facilities, with culture and ways of life.