The demolishing of Sulukule, a historic Roma neighborhood inside Istanbul's ancient walls, has been one of the most egregious examples of the destructive nature of the numerous "urban transformation" projects that have been enacted in the city in recent years. In general, this "transformation" has meant evicting or relocating lower-income residents from neighborhoods in newly-desirable locations, tearing down their homes, and replacing them with soulless new buildings that appeal to Turkey's fast-growing middle class.
This has certainly been the case in the plan to "transform" Sulukule, which started in 2008, when the local municipality started evicting Roma families from a large part of the hardscrabble neighborhood in order to make way for the construction of 640 "Ottoman-style" homes that none of the area's original tenants could possibly afford to buy or rent. Although the construction project is already well on its way, with most of these homes built, a new court ruling is giving Sulukule residents and their supporters a sense of limited hope. From the Hurriyet Daily News:
A transformation project in Istanbul’s predominantly Roma neighborhood of Sulukule is “not beneficial to the public,” Istanbul’s Fourth Administrative Court ruled yesterday, adding that construction of new villas “must be stopped.”
The ruling comes after a four-year court case launched by the Istanbul Architects Board, Urban Planning Board and the Sulukule Roma Association.
All the new buildings in Sulukule are illegal and must be torn down, Mücella Yapıcı of the Architects Board said in the wake of the ruling. “Justice when it comes late is not justice,” she added.
Many of Istanbul's low-income districts have fallen victim in recent years to the city's steamroller "urban transformation" policy, which has led to the wholesale eviction of entire neighborhoods. Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of this has been the case the Roma residents of the Sulukule neighborhood in Istanbul's old city, who saw their historic neighborhood razed to the ground to make way for high-priced villas -- despite vocal criticism from local and international groups.
Several years after the area's residents were moved to new housing far from the center of town, the Guardian returns to Sulukule to follow up on the story. From the Guardian:
