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Large-scale high-rise architecture projects have been central to the rise of the construction industry in Turkey in recent years. This vertical escalation, however, has not been received without dissidence. Scholars, activists, journalists and officials with different viewpoints have participated in media debates regarding the reasons and consequences of this transformation. In these discussions, stakeholders have raised various environmental, cultural and ethical concerns that the vertical organisation of cities generate. Focussing on juxtapositions of Izmir and Istanbul in debates on urban verticality in the city of Izmir, Turkey's third most populated city, the paper examines how such comparisons with Istanbul, where the recent urban neoliberal transformation is experienced most intensely, have been mobilised to oppose vertical expansion. The paper argues that as a result of the recent centralisation of the Turkish economy around construction, the hyper-visibility of skyscrapers and the concentration of the urban transformation generated by the Turkish construction industry in Istanbul, skyscrapers have become materialised symbols of Istanbul's integration into global capitalism, neoliberal urbanisation, and the difference between Istanbul and other urban centres in Turkey. This example establishes urban verticality as a discursive axis at which urban centres outside of the Global North establish their difference from each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss how the earthquake risk is exploited by 'disaster capitalism', in order to convert Istanbul to a massive construction site. The shock of the 1999 Marmara Earthquake has been effectively used by the neoliberal market and government as 'a shock therapy' to implement a construction‐led development model for Turkey and to favour the construction sector by introducing new incentives, exceptional rights and interventions, which otherwise might be challenged. The current Turkish government justify the ongoing massive urban transformation and new mass housing projects as an improvement of the housing stock to make residential buildings stronger and more resilient to earthquakes. However, areas actually under earthquake risk do not match the areas that are officially declared under disaster risk by the government. The Disaster Law #6306 that granted the government the absolute right to expropriate land based on the justification of 'protecting residents against earthquakes and other natural disasters' was applied in a selective way to seize valuable land in Istanbul. In the paper I explore how the disaster was quickly converted to an opportunity for economic growth. To do that I introduce stories of three different neighbourhoods in Istanbul, namely Moda, Tozkoparan and Fikirtepe, each of which experience the ongoing massive urban transformation differently based on the land value of the neighbourhoods, class position of the residents, and residents' capacity to organise in order to protect their rights. I describe, how disaster capitalism is lived and experienced differently in these three neighbourhoods. Although the massive construction projects are indifferent to life's sustainability, those projects are justified as interventions in terms of public health and safety through making housing resilient to earthquakes. I critically discuss how in each case biopolitics presents disaster capitalism's massive urban transformation projects as a manifestation of liveliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this opinion paper, I trace children's access to play in the urban context against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the news, civil society organizations' reports and conversations with experts working in Istanbul, Turkey during the last year, I show how children's access to public places in the city gets constrained by urban governance that neglects young people's needs. Examples from the neighborhoods of Istanbul, Turkey, indicate the importance of having in mind the whole community while thinking about bringing play opportunities in public spaces and at the same time raise questions about children's participation in these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based mainly on original French archival sources, this paper discusses the conduct and extent of French military and civil activities in Ottoman Istanbul during the Crimean War. Using both qualitative and quantitative indicators, the paper shows how the necessities generated by the war, promoted an unprecedented growth in the French military and civil presence in Istanbul. Through this approach, the paper explains to what degree the war created new market opportunities for various French products and services, a favourable environment for the establishment of French hospitals, and also occasions for cultural encounters between the French and the Ottomans in Istanbul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the age of socio-ecological crises in which we live, the urgency of understanding the complicated relationship between society and nature is apparent. To achieve this, unfolding the urban metabolism of cities through metabolic flows from the perspective of urban political ecology will grow increasingly essential in the future. This paper aims to explore the concept of urban political ecology as a perspective for understanding emergence of a new urban metabolism in İstanbul in the nineteenth century through metabolic flows of water. The context of "metabolic" emphasizes labor as an agent for the very production of nature as urbanized nature through tap water, waste, and sanitation. It shows the transition and the conflict between the labor-intensive urban metabolism and capital-intensive urban metabolism of İstanbul, which started in the nineteenth century. The metabolic flows of water in terms of infrastructure were affected by the first impacts of foreign capital investments and capitalist relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the high streets of Istanbul within the context of high street management through four dimensions of location and movement, physical fabric, real estate & land use and exchange, and suggests a comprehensive approach to manage these commercial axes. While analysing the chosen study areas of Istiklal Street, Bagdat Street and Nisantasi District under the given topics, this paper makes use of analyses regarding transportation network, footfall, commercial and non-commercial use, prime rental values, besides a literature review to have an understanding towards the nature of each case study area. The results imply that despite their differences, all three study areas face certain issues that point out the lack of comprehensive strategic approaches to their management. Towards the high streets of Istanbul, this paper proposes a management approach embracing three main goals: (1) to constitute a brand image, (2) to decrease the vulnerability against macroeconomic factors and (3) to maintain vitality and viability of these axes. To overcome the complexities regarding management issues, this paper suggests an organizational and institutional approach, dedicated to considering the interests of all users on high streets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foucault’s pendulum is one of the most important scientific achievements of the French physicist Léon Foucault. The performance of the experiment in 1851 was the first tangible proof of the Earth’s rotation. The relative technical simplicity and beauty of the experiment led to many repetitions of it, the manufacture of related pendulums by scientific instrument manufacturers, and the permanent or temporary installation of such pendulums in educational institutions for teaching as well as aesthetic reasons. The Phanar Greek Orthodox College in İstanbul is the oldest operating school of the city’s Greek community. After many moves during the first four centuries of its operation, the College found a permanent home in an impressive privately owned building in Fener in 1881. The building hosts a rich collection of scientific instruments, acquired mainly in the last quarter of the 19th century by French manufacturers and at the beginning of the 20th by Germans and Austrians. In 1912 special changes were made to the building to house a Foucault pendulum which was manufactured by the German company Max Kohl. This paper presents the history of this device, which is one of the first (perhaps the first) used in the Ottoman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper foregrounds the state–corporate alliance in real estate development in Istanbul since the early 2000s. Employing a geo-coded sample of 294 private housing development projects built since the early 1980s and in-depth interviews with the private development companies, the paper focuses on how the construction industry and the massive commodification of urban land produced a new state–space nexus. The underlying question here is the nascent shape of urban political-economy, the trends of housing construction, the cycles of boom and bust and the mechanisms of capital accumulation concerning the state's centralising control over space. In this sample, a few critical aspects of the production of concrete space became apparent. Seven findings are discussed. First, the developers of Istanbul followed the clientelistic patterns in the urban built environment. The second aspect is that the state is the sole supply-side actor that determines Istanbul's built environment. The third point in this analysis of urban development initiated by the private sector is focused on the fact that the real estate speculation is state-led. The fourth and fifth points are related to the Turkish real estate developers' inability to procure financing for the duration of the construction process. The sixth factor in the evaluation of the private real estate sector in Istanbul is the geographical and class dispersal of active development projects. The seventh factor in understanding those real estate developers is their novel approach to marketing and advertisement and the way they employ architecture as an extension of public relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outside of the Global North, where agri-food systems have not yet consolidated into a 'funnel shape,' what makes an urban provisioning actor 'alternative' is not always clear. In this paper, I use members' own definitions, emphases, and arguments to differentiate 'alternative' networks from other provisioning actors. Using data from semi-structured interviews, I show that while community-building and an affiliation with the food movement (broadly defined) are the most critical features identified by people who participate in these networks, more informal, ad hoc, familial or village networks that are utilized as a response to urban food insecurity are excluded. While such exclusions may not be unique, in this case, they reflect more fundamental divisions regarding what 'alternative' implies and how to challenge the throttling hold of conventional provisioning agents on the contemporary agri-food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water supply has been a chronic challenge in Istanbul since its foundation. Authorities have sought alternative methods since the Roman and Byzantine periods. Cisterns, channels and wells surveyed in urban heritage sites in Istanbul provide evidence of rainwater harvesting (RWH) as a working solution in the past. However, RWH systems have only been utilized in contemporary plans and policies very recently, particularly since the climate change crisis entered the political agenda in Turkey. Taking this as a point of departure, this paper investigates the challenges of widespread implementation of RWH systems in Istanbul through a participatory inquiry with water management actors. Challenges and needs are explored through a set of in-depth interviews and participatory workshops with representatives from water management institutions. The findings reveal that current challenges are related to planning and development, legislation and governance, financing, society, infrastructure, installation and operation of systems. The potential solution is the establishment of a governance mechanism that enables collective action among relevant actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the everyday mobilities of low-income populations during the Covid-19 pandemic through a mixed-methods study in İstanbul. It shows how additional economic burdens brought by the Covid-19 pandemic interplay with low-income residents' attitudes towards using different transport modes, mobility levels, and concerns over public transport use based on socioeconomic and demographic differences. It suggests that household structures, social networks and perceived mobility restrictions tend to be associated with mobility patterns and practices. The paper argues that changes and continuities in mobility trends and practices due to the pandemic should be considered with broader social and economic dynamics at the household and community level. It draws key lessons learned concerning the pandemic mobilities to be transferred to future transport policy and mobility governance so that intragenerational inequalities could be mainstreamed in these policy domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how layers of history can be parsed in a neighborhood through narrative analysis, using Balat, an old quarter of Istanbul, as a case study. The study tests the relevance of several methodologies and concepts, including palimpsest, chronotope and heterotopia, to see whether local, Constantinopolitan iterations of these ways of reading can be marshalled instead. To that end, it has recourse to Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s extensive writing on Istanbul to expand on concepts such as terkip, macera and buhran. These concepts are traced backwards and forwards in time to see how they apply to different writers’ work on Istanbul/Constantinople through the ages, such as Odo of Deuil, Evliya Çelebi, John Ash and Orhan Pamuk. This comparative exercise reveals an affective bond between the writers, one that favors imperial melancholia and nostalgia. The contemporary nostalgia/melancholia affect is then shown to be either savored or shunned by Istanbulites and visitors, as they make use of this poetics of the past as cultural capital, they may invest in for use on social media today [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent increase in microplastics-related studies, little is known about their abundance in seabed sediment areas. However, the quantity of microplastics (MPs) in sediments is imperative for an overall understanding of worldwide MPs pollution. To address the above-mentioned gap, this study was performed on 43 seabed sediment stations from the Marmara Sea of Turkey. Studied stations vary between marine (MRN), pier (PIER), stream (STR), sea discharge (SD), and deep-sea discharge (DSD) stations. Collected seabed sediment samples were analyzed for MPs abundance, shape, size and color distribution. Besides, an investigation on the effect of sea depth on MPs' total abundance, size, and shape was investigated using Pearson's and Spearman's product momentum correlation coefficient. Empirical data analysis showed that the highest MPs abundance at STR stations changed between 1956.5 ± 3031.8 and 3256.2 ± 5168.2 particle/kg (dry weight: d.w.) for small MPs particles (SMP) and large MPs particles (LMP), respectively. Contrarily, the lowest abundance was found as 224.8 ± 423.05 and 287.68 ± 218.6 particle/kg (d.w.) for SMP and LMP fractions, respectively at DSD stations. The MPs abundance were found at 5 categorized stations in the following order; STR>PIER>MRN>SD>DSD, noted that the highest MPs quantity was found at STR-6 station located in Golden Horn. The isolated MPs were predominantly filament and fragment in shape (42.34 ± 6.10% and 33.91 ± 6.92%), blue and white in color (40.46 ± 4.66% and 24.75 ± 3.83%). Mean MPs abundance was determined to be 1957.37 ± 4079.96 particle/kg (d.w) at all 43 stations and sizes between 1 and 5 mm was found to be predominant at depths between 5 and 71m. Furthermore, a negative correlation was found between sea depth and parameters such as total MPs abundance, shape, and size. The overall results revealed the widespread presence of MPs in the seas surrounding Istanbul. [Display omitted] • This paper focuses on microplastics in sea-sediments in the coastal areas of Istanbul. • Marine, pier, stream and sea discharge stations were comprehensively studied. • The highest microplastics were found for stream station pouring into Golden Horn. • The lowest microplastic particles were obtained for deep sea discharge stations. • Alarming microplastic pollution was noticed in the Golden Horn located stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]