DIVERCITIES Governing Urban Diversity: governing urban diversity Creating Social Cohesion, Social Mobility and Economic Performance in Today’s Hyper-diversified Cities Dealing with Urban Diversity Dealing with This book is one of the outcomes of the DIVERCITIES project. It focuses on the question of how to create social cohesion, social Urban Diversity • mobility and economic performance in today’s hyper-diversified cities. The Case of Istanbul The Case of Istanbul The project’s central hypothesis is that urban diversity is an asset; it can inspire creativity, innovation and make cities more liveable. There are fourteen books in this series: Antwerp, Athens, Ayda Eraydin I˙smail Demirdag˘ Budapest, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Milan, Feriha Nazda Güngördü Paris, Rotterdam, Tallinn, Toronto, Warsaw and Zurich. Özge Yersen Yenigün This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under www.urbandivercities.eu grant agreement No. 319970. SSH.2012.2.2.2-1; Governance of cohesion and diversity in urban contexts. DIVERCITIES: Dealing with Urban Diversity The Case of Istanbul Ayda Eraydin I˙smail Demirdag˘ Feriha Nazda Güngördü Özge Yersen Yenigün Governing Urban Diversity: Creating Social Cohesion, Social Mobility and Economic Performance in Today’s Hyper-diversified Cities To be cited as: Eraydın, A., Demirdag˘ , I˙., Güngördü, Lead Partner F.N., and Yenigün, Ö. (2017). DIVERCITIES: Dealing - Utrecht University, The Netherlands with Urban Diversity – The case of Istanbul. Middle East Technical University, Ankara. Consortium Partners - University of Vienna, Austria This report has been put together by the authors, - University of Antwerp, Belgium and revised on the basis of the valuable comments, - Aalborg University, Denmark suggestions, and contributions of all DIVERCITIES - University of Tartu, Estonia partners. - University Paris-Est Créteil, France - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental The views expressed in this report are the sole Research – UFZ, Germany responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily - Fachhochschule Erfurt, Germany reflect the views of the European Commission. - National Centre for Social Research (EKKE), Greece - University of Szeged, Hungary - University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy - University of Amsterdam, Netherlands - Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), The Netherlands - Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland - synergo Mobility-Politics-Space GmbH, Switzerland - Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey - University College London, United Kingdom Advisory Board - Jan Vranken, University of Antwerp, Belgium - David Hulchanski, University of Toronto, ISBN 978 90 6266 459 7 Canada © 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, by print or photo print, microfilm or any other means, without written permission by the publishers. Copy Editors: Melissa Lee and David Wills Cover Image: Melissa Lee Design & Layout: C&M, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Printed by: Xerox, The Netherlands A digital version of this report is available on the DIVERCITIES website: http://www.urbandivercities.eu In memory of Ronald van Kempen CONTENTS Preface 7 1 Dealing with urban diversity: an introduction 9 1.1 Introduction 9 1.2 The purpose of the book 11 1.3 Dealing with diversity: some key arguments 14 1.4 The outline of this book 22 2 Istanbul as a diverse city 25 2.1 Locating Istanbul 25 2.2 Diverse-city Istanbul 29 2.3 Origins and causes of diversity in Istanbul 32 2.4 Socio-spatial dynamics of diversity in Istanbul 34 2.5 Diversity, economic dynamics and entrepreneurship in Istanbul 37 2.6 Challenges and opportunities of Istanbul as a diverse city 40 3 Policy discourses on diversity 43 3.1 Introduction 43 3.2 Methodology 45 3.3 Policy approaches towards diversity at national and local level: structure and shifts 45 3.4 Governmental discourses and the governance of diversity in the city of Istanbul 54 3.5 Non-governmental perspectives on the governance of diversity 61 3.6 Governance arrangements and initiatives 63 3.7 Conclusions 68 4 Residents dealing with diversity 73 4.1 Introduction 73 4.2 Methodology 73 4.3 Housing choice and residential mobility 75 4.4 Perceptions of diversity in the neighbourhood 82 4.5 Activities in and outside the neighbourhood 90 4.6 Social cohesion 94 4.7 Social mobility 103 4.8 Perceptions of public policies 107 4.9 Conclusion 111 5 Entrepreneurs dealing with diversity 115 5.1 Introduction 115 5.2 Methodology 118 5.3 The entrepreneurs and their businesses 119 5.4 Starting an enterprise in a diverse urban area 130 5.5 Economic performance and the role of urban diversity 138 5.6 Institutional support and government policies 151 5.7 Conclusion 159 6 Conclusions: dealing with diversity 163 6.1 Brief summary of the book 163 6.2 Urban diversity as an asset or liability? 168 6.3 Suggestions for policy: how to use the results? 171 Appendices 189 1. List of persons interviewed 189 2. List of round-table talk participants 191 3. Fieldwork inhabitants 192 4. List of entrepreneurs interviewed 195 Notes 197 PREFACE This book is one of the outcomes of the DIVERCITIES project. It focuses on the question of how to create social cohesion, social mobility and economic performance in today’s hyper- diversified cities. The project’s central hypothesis is that urban diversity is an asset; it can inspire creativity, innovation and make cities more liveable and harmonious. To ensure a more intelligent use of diversity’s potential, a re-thinking of public policies and governance models is needed. Headed by Utrecht University in the Netherlands, DIVERCITIES is a collaborative research project comprising 14 European teams. DIVERCITIES is financed by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme (Project No. 319970). There are fourteen books in this series, one for each case study city. The cities are Antwerp, Athens, Budapest, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Leipzig, London, Milan, Paris, Rotterdam, Tallinn, Toronto, Warsaw and Zurich. This book is concerned with Istanbul. Most of the texts in this book are based on a number of previously published DIVERCITIES reports. Ayda Eraydin, İsmail Demirdağ, Feriha Nazda Güngördü and Özge Yersen Yenigün The Case of Istanbul 7 8 DIVERCITIES: Dealing with Urban Diversity 1 DEALING WITH URBAN DIVERSITY: AN INTRODUCTION 1.1 INTRODUCTION Istanbul has always been a diverse city, however, over the years the composition of people and the prominent type of diversity have changed gradually – from religious, ethnic and cultural diversity to socio-economic diversity and, more recently, lifestyle diversity. Lifestyle diversity, as it became evident during this research on Istanbul, incorporates both socio-economic differences as well as differences in cultures, norms, beliefs, values and ideologies. This huge city has an enormous diversity of urban neighbourhoods. Each neighbourhood displays different housing and environmental characteristics, leading to all kinds of specific places: enclaves for the wealthy, slums and ghettos for the poor, middle-class suburbs, both thriving and degrading inner city districts, gated communities, areas with shrinking populations and neighbourhoods with growing populations due to increasing immigration. Among them, there are some neighbourhoods with a diversified character with both wealthy and poor inhabitants and immigrant groups with different ethnic backgrounds. The increasing diversity in Istanbul and diversity in several districts necessitates understanding the dynamics of this metropolitan region as well as diversified neighbourhoods and the search for new policies, planning principles and institutions to deal with urban diversity. Unfortunately, most of the existing debates on urban diversity are quite general and at the city level, which is not useful enough to identify the policies and measures to increase the contribution of diversity to the well-being of people and a coherent and innovative society. In this book, we introduce findings from the case study area, Beyoğlu, which is one of the districts with a diversified population in Istanbul. It has a long diversity legacy since it has hosted various civilisations with different ethnicities, cultures, languages and religion in different periods. Throughout the 19th century, Beyoğlu was home to European populations (French, Germans, Italians, British, etc.) and non-Muslim Ottoman citizens (Greeks, Armenians and Jews), but it had lost many of its former residents at the beginning of the Republican period, starting in the 1920s. Following the population exchange between the Balkan countries and Turkey and the outward migration of people of Greek descent after the events of 6-7 September 1955 the area attracted many poor immigrant families from less-developed regions of Turkey in the 1960s, as well as other disadvantaged groups. Furthermore, the departure of those of Greek descent led other minorities to leave the district, after which, it became home to many immigrants with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, as well as immigrants from neighbouring countries and Western Europe. At present, Beyoğlu has a very mixed demographic The Case of Istanbul 9 structure, including poor communities, immigrants from different regions of Turkey, besides creative-professional middle and high-income classes, artists and people with diverse gender identities and sexual orientation. Romani people, Kurdish people, Syrian refugees,