Istanbul Study Trip - 2007. (A report from Helène Rodriguez)
After much debate, this year's RUPS field trip was to Istanbul.
Choosing our destination was a long and chaotic process (who says planners are the best in organizing events?!). We considered Moscow, Cairo, Marrakech, Budapest, Shanghai and Lisbon. All of these cities seemed great options. Eventually -given our interest in this city, the possibility of having good contacts there, the weather, the food and our tiny budget - we voted for Istanbul. It was a brilliant choice!
The city counts more than 10 million inhabitants and is characterized by on the one hand a fairly European Mediterranean atmosphere, but on the other preserves its Muslim character. Especially interesting is the geographic situation of the city bridging the European and the Asian continent. The European part of Istanbul is further separated by the Golden Horn into the southern old city centre and the northern contemporary city centre. Further contrasts within the city's inhabitant structure can be observed clearly and closely. The attraction of the city for migrants from the east of the country because of its economic prosperity leads to temporary settlement structures, named gecekondus. The city centre in contrast represents the city's businesses with high rise buildings and retail centers.
Our planning activities gave more insight into the historic, economic and social background of today's urban structure:
- The Takla Building, Faculty of Architecture: Prof. Dr. Glden Erkut and two of their students gave us lectures about the planning strategies of the city of Istanbul. It was emphasized that Istanbul is seen as being on the path to "the Mediterranean World City" and this led to an interesting discussion.
'''- The Mimar Sinan University: Dr. Murat Cemal Yalcintan ( a former PhD student of LSE in Regional and Urban Planning) and his colleagues and students gave us very comprehensive lectures on Istanbul's demographic structure and institutional framework, housing issues and planning perspectives. Work with local inhabitants of the gecekondus was presented and the local challenges became clear.
- The Metropolitan Planning Centre of the municipality of Istanbul gave us a detailed talk on their activities and projects oriented towards the exploration of the urban growth potential of the city.
- Tour of the city: we had an afternoon and a day touring in the city with Orhan Esen. We spent an afternoon in the old city centre south of the Golden horn and were guided from the relatively touristy centre to gecekondus further west. In a day trip we were able to visit gecekondus of different types and the building projects initiated by the urban government o rehouse the inhabitants of these settlements. Large apartment towers and blocks dominate the urban landscape where former low rise squatter settlements were situated. Further we visited a series of gated communities situated in the north of the centre and far from earthquake endangered zones.
All these presentations helped us to start understanding the complexity of Istanbul. Walks throughout the city and conversations with local experts also helped colour our experience. We discovered a tremendous city facing both developed and developing urban issues with a fantastic culture and great people.
As far as non planning activities were concerned, we were all absolutely obsessed with food! Derek Diamond (former director of the program who came with us) called us "the foody year." Indeed, Istanbul has amazing food especially the hot and cold metzes and the deserts! We also took some free time to explore the city by ourselves. A small group even rented a small fishing boat to go to the Asian side, having to cross the troubled Bosphorus. It was fun despite the risk of losing our lunch!
We would like to thank Derek for coming with us, and all the academics and professionals we met and who guided us around Istanbul.
In London we thank Andy Thornley for giving us a really interesting lecture on Istanbul and Cihana, LSE PhD student from Turkey, who helped us contact people and found us a nice hotel to stay at and suggested what to do in Istanbul.
Mini-reunion in Istanbul.
Istanbul was also the location for the re-union of Andy Thornley, Javier Sanchez and Murat Yalcintan in June 2006.
This took place in the faded art-nouveau splendour of the Pera Palas Hotel in Taksim where Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express. The OECD was camped there for a week to conduct its Territorial review on Istanbul. The OECD was listening to evidence from a variety of different interest from the city. On one side of the table there was Javier as an official of the OECD and Andy as an 'expert' advisor and on the other Murat describing the situation for squatter immigrants. Just like an LSE seminar!