İDEALKENT
Yazarlar: Nejdet ÖZBERK
Konular:-
Anahtar Kelimeler:Urban political ecology,James C. Scott,Legibilility and simplification projects,Urban transformation,Nevşehir
Özet: Exclusionary and authoritarian public policies do not always produce intended results. In the case of urban transformation, this social reality is also relevant for urbanization and environmental policies. Urban transformation practices as authoritarian social engineering projects, usually lead to unanticipated social and ecological consequences. Therefore, these urban transformation practices need to be evaluated in terms of power relations among different segments and institutions of the society. This assessment can be done within the framework of urban political ecology, which is an approach focused on the analysis of power relations. Looking at the underlying dynamics of Turkish spatial policies from a different perspective, urban political ecology, this paper examines the project of urban transformation undertaken by the City of Nevsehir that resulted the destruction of the fourteen neighbourhoods (half) of the old city center. Using Nevşehir as a case, we try to explore how the state’s simplified version of urban design contradicts, ignores and destroys history, the ecosystem variety of social experience in the urban center. The empirical findings in this study shows that urban demolition project in Nevşehir fits into Scott’s general description of legibility and simplification. Scott examines how the social engineering projects of the states resulted in social and ecological disasters. By excluding local participation, the central government determined to tear down a historic urban center based on high modernist ideology to maximize the land value and improve the general image of the city. But this example of authoritarian high modernist urban transformation initative failed not only did it ignore the local societies, ecologies and local knowledge, but its implementation also resulted in the destruction of the very city and the clearance of the relationships, local culture, cultural heritage and the historical identity that were a part of it.