ANKARA’DA GECEKONDU ALANLARININ DÖNÜŞÜMÜ İÇİN BİR ARAÇ OLARAK ISLAH İMAR PLANLARI

By 1950s, large scale urbanization processes had accelerated at international scale due to significant technological, economic and political changes. Changes with regard to international relations after the World War II were manifest especially among -developed and developing countries. Before the World War II, economies of some developing countries had become dependent on the developed economies. After the War, economic dependency prevailed. Technology and capital transfer to developing countries in return for their raw material and cheap labour, gave rise to new international relations within the context of economic interaction between developed and developing countries. Rapid and comprehensive urbanization processes stemming from industrial investment to urban areas along with agricultural investment to predominant rural areas and consequent migration from latter to former became the pattern of development in the developing world. As other developing countries, Turkey was also influenced by these changes. During the period between 1923 and 1945, from foundation of the Republic to the beginning the World War II, Turkey empowered internal markets; increased its industrial investments and improved its transportation network. Changes in economic structure gave rise to an industrialization process which, in turn, shaped the urbanization process in Turkey. Ankara and İstanbul, were faced with these rapid urbanization processes following the World War II. Urban population of Ankara increased from 74.553 in 1927 to 122.720 in 1935 (65 % increase in 8 years). In fact, growth rate in the urban population of Ankara was higher than the average rate for Turkey. It has been widely accepted that, the reason for this increase was the new role assigned for Ankara as being the capital city of the young Republic. The period from 1950s up to today is no different from that period, as the increase in urban population of Ankara has always been very high compared to the average for Turkey.Urban population growth through natural causes in addition to ruralurban migration led to an increase in the demand for housing, particularly in the large cities of Turkey. Migrants have satisfied their residential needs through informal settlements, particularly in the peripheral areas of large cities mainly due to insufficient government policies in balancing housing supply and demand. The squatter housing, which are called “gecekondu” in Turkish, are consistent features of cities in many developing countries. The process of land acquisition and shelter provision is often illegal, but in many cases it is the only solution, as public housing projects fall far short of demand and are often benefited by middle-classes rather than the poor. Turkish governments have developed two different models in the quest to propose solutions to the gecekondu problem; which are the “improvement plans” and “urban renewal projects”. While improvement plans are prepared by individual municipalities, urban renewal projects are prepared through competitions or by planning bureaus for specific critical areas. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the solution models for transformation of squatter housing areas in Turkey, by deriving an empirical study in Ankara, the capital city. The empirical study is limited by improvement plans made in Ankara up to 1997, when almost all of the improvement plans for squatter areas in Ankara were completed. Following the introduction, second section provides a brief depiction of improvement plans and legal arrangements related to squatter housing areas. Methodology used in this study and the results of empirical study are given in the third section. Finally, the paper is concluded with an evaluation and discussion on the effectiveness of improvement plans as a tool for transformation of squatter housing areas.