Introduction

Turkey has been a rapidly urbanising country since the 1950s. Its major cities experienced massive migratory flows. The share of population living in cities was only 25 per cent in 1950; this increased to 70 per cent by 2012 and it is expected to reach 85 per cent by 2050 (Balaban, 2012). As the economic engine of the country, Istanbul has always been an attraction point for both investments and people, and has been under constant growth pressures. The population of the city increased from 1.1 million in 1950 to 4.7 million by 1980, and with a population of 15 million by 2017, Istanbul became the largest city in Europe. Housing the mounting population has been one of the major challenges facing cities in Turkey, including Istanbul. The rapid pace of urbanisation resulted in the emergence of improvised solutions to the housing problem, leading to different forms of self-regulation and the formation of a dual structure where formal and informal settlements coexisted.

Rapid urbanisation was paralleled by skyrocketing land values and a highly speculative land market in Istanbul. However, as Öncü (1988) points out, the enormous growth of urban land rents cannot be explained by the scarcity of land alone vis-a-vis the rapidly increasing population. Urban land in the Turkish context has a much wider role. It has not only been a major source of securing funds in a highly inflationary economy, but also been a major source of accumulation for all sectors of society – rich and poor alike. Tapping the lucrative land market meant wide-ranging alliances between various actors that changed over time in line with shifting housing regimes, making Istanbul a contested terrain of urban governance reflecting the ‘tensions between societal self-regulation initiatives, market forces and governmental regulation’ (Salet et al, 2020:2).

The state took different stances in the different phases of Turkish urbanisation from the 1950s. Three periods can be identified regarding the production of space in line with the socio-economic policies adopted by the state, which also connoted shifting housing regimes. The first is the period from 1950 to 1980. It is marked by massive urbanisation with minimal state intervention in housing production and witnessed the emergence of two forms of self-build housing forms: gecekondu and yap-sat.