Division and the City: Spatial Dramas of Divided Cities
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
ARTICLE MEGARON 2015;10(4):565-579 DOI: 10.5505/MEGARON.2015.29290 Division and the City: Spatial Dramas of Divided Cities Bölünme ve Kent: Bölünmüş Kentlerin Mekânsal Trajedileri Gizem CANER ABSTRACT ÖZ Every contemporary city is divided to a certain extent. The Günümüz şehirlerinin neredeyse tamamı kavramsal bağlam- present study is concerned with urban division defined by da bir düzeye kadar bölünmüştür. Ancak bu yazı, milliyet, extreme tensions related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, etnisite, din ve kültürle ilişkili uç gerilimlerin neden olduğu, and culture, which are channelled into urban arenas. Once daha spesifik bir kentsel bölünme türüyle ilgilenmektedir. Bu these contestations are made spatially visible, the “divided çatışmalar kentsel alanlarda ses bulmaktadır ve mekânsal city” with which this study is concerned appears. Well-known görünürlük kazandıkları zaman, bu yazının da konusu olan examples of such “divided” cities are Belfast, Jerusalem, Nic- ‘bölünmüş kentler’ ortaya çıkmaktadır. Bu şehirler arasında osia, Mostar, Beirut, and Berlin. Due to distinctive attributes, en iyi bilinen örnekler Belfast, Kudüs, Lefkoşa, Mostar, Bey- these cities contain an exclusive discourse that differentiates rut ve Berlin’dir. Özgün niteliklerinden dolayı, bu şehirler, them from other urban areas. In this context, the aim of the kendilerini diğer kentsel alanlardan ayıran özel bir söyleme present study was to comparatively analyze urban conse- sahiptirler. Bu çerçevede, bu yazının ana konusu, seçilmiş quences of division in selected case studies: Belfast and Ber- şehir örneklerinde–Belfast ve Berlin–bölünmenin kentsel so- lin. As each city has unique attributes of geography, history, nuçlarının karşılaştırmalı olarak analiz edilmesidir. Her kent, and economic development, the processes and outcomes of kendine has coğrafi, tarihi ve ekonomik gelişme özelliklerine their division differ substantially. This investigation of the con- sahip olduğu için, bölünme süreç ve sonuçları büyük farklı- sequences of urban division in a temporal perspective pres- lıklar göstermektedir. Bölünmenin kentsel sonuçlarını süreç ents patterns of urban development before, during, and after odaklı bir yaklaşımla değerlendirmek, bölünme öncesi, sıra- division in order to provide a comprehensive understanding sı ve sonrasındaki mekânsal trajedilerinin bütüncül olarak of spatial dramas faced by these cities. Comparative analysis daha anlaşılabilir olmasına olanak tanıyacaktır. Karşılaştır- revealed a common pattern of functional and structural -ur malı analiz sonucunda, örnek şehirler arasındaki farklılıkla- ban consequences, in spite of differences. It is suggested that ra karşın, genel bir fonksiyonel ve yapısal kentsel sonuçlar an illustration of common patterns of development can fa- tablosunun ortaya çıktığı görülmüştür. Bu tablonun, kentsel cilitate an early recognition and management of division. It is bölünmenin mekânsal örüntüsünü anlamak isteyen ileriki ça- believed that the findings of the present study will aid future lışmalar için aydınlatıcı olacağı düşünülmekte ve bölünmüş studies that aim to understand the patterning of urban divi- kentlerin karşı karşıya olduğu sorunlarla baş edebilmesi için sion and generate planning models to tackle problems faced geliştirilecek planlama modelleri için altlık teşkil etmesi bek- by divided cities. lenmektedir. Keywords: Belfast; Berlin; divided cities; division, urban consequenc- Anahtar sözcükler: Belfast; Berlin; bölünmüş kent; bölünme; kentsel es of division; urban division. bölünme sonuçları; kentsel bölünme. Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. Article arrival date: April 15, 2014 - Accepted for publication: September 29, 2015 Correspondence: Gizem CANER. e-mail: [email protected] © 2015 Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Mimarlık Fakültesi - © 2015 Yıldız Technical University, Faculty of Architecture m garonjournal.com m CİLT VOL. 10 - SAYI NO. 4 565 Introduction A general literature review on the term ‘divided cit- Almost every major city around the world is hetero- ies’ reveals a split between two distinct discourses. geneous in terms of culture and ethnicity. What this The first one, mostly developed from the 1950s to implies for cities is that division is commonplace and the 1980s, discussed divided cities through the com- that every city is divided to a certain extent. Although mon themes and conditions prevailing throughout the many of these divisions are social, they have a geo- developed western world: divisions of capitalist pro- graphical context since space is socially created. In duction processes, urban segregation and increasing other words, as Park (1926) states in his ground-break- inequality between the affluent and deprived city dis- ing article ‘The Urban Community as a Spatial Pattern tricts (Safier, 1997). In the last three decades however, and Social Order’; “social relations are so frequently there has been a growing body of literature concerned and so inevitably correlated with spatial relations” (p. with a more specific form of urban division, classified 30), that social divisions frequently—and in some cas- by its extremeness. This limited sense indicated physi- es inevitably—manifest themselves physically. In this cal or political contestations in a few special cases. sense, it should be borne in mind that throughout this According to Anderson (2008: 6), “mainstream ur- paper, division refers to a socio-spatial process. ban studies in English-speaking academia have gener- For a better understanding of what is meant by the ally concentrated on ‘normal’, ‘undivided’ and more or term ‘division’, we can consider Marcuse’s (2002) as- less peaceful cities […] where these [ordinary] cities sertions on types of division existing in contemporary are considered ‘divided’, we have seen it is usually not cities. According to Marcuse, there are three types of by nationalism but by other divisions, such as ethnicity urban divisions which can overlap or contradict each per se or social class”. other; The above excerpt implies that reasons of division • Cultural divisions: differences in language, ethnic- are determinant in identifying which group a city be- ity, nationality, religion etc. that are independent longs to. Processes like globalization, decolonization from economic production or power relations. and neo-liberal restructuring form socio-economic Such differences may produce spatial segregation differences in cities, often layered with ethnic differ- according to household type, family status, age ences. Status, class, welfare, power, race and ethnic- and the like. ity are the lines of division; hence, pluralist disputes are emphasized (Gaffikin and Morrissey, 2011). These • Functional divisions: the result of economic logic, cities—New York, London, Paris etc.—are usually re- either physical or organisational, i.e. areas set ferred to as ‘multicultural’, ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘global’, aside for defence, commerce, and residence. and are believed to be easier to cope with since they Zoning is the accepted legal embodiment of such are ‘merely’ divided (Benvenisti, 1986). On the other divisions. hand, most prominent processes behind division in • Status divisions: reflecting and reinforcing rela- ‘extremely’ divided cities are political and ideological tionships of power, domination and exploitation. oppressions like wars, as well as divide-and-rule strat- Class, income and occupation are some examples egies of the colonizers. In these cities, long-standing of divisions by status. In general terms, their spa- questions of identity, national sovereignty, territory, tial reflections are gated communities and slums. culture, language, and religion are to the fore, and they are usually layered with socio-economic differ- This classification reveals how physical divisions ences. The presence of these undisputable aspects emerge from non-physical ones. It also illustrates why turns these cities into arenas of challenge by all means division is the preferred term in this paper; because (for a detailed analysis about the reasons of division it refers to a broader concept than segregation. Here, see Caner and Bölen, 2014). division is used to evoke the meaning of segregation, which is “the spatial separation of various groups Going back to Marcuse’s (2002) classification of divi- across different geographical areas” (Caves, 2005, p. sions, we can trace a complex overlap of cultural and 400). But more importantly, by preferring division to economic divisions in both merely and extremely di- segregation, it is aimed to avoid the extensive segrega- vided cities. Apparently, the severity of these divisions tion literature in order to stay focused on the extreme depend on their historical evolution, and in return, conditions of divided cities—the focus point of this pa- their physical manifestations range from acceptable per. levels of segregation to extreme levels of division. 566 CİLT VOL. 10 - SAYI NO. 4 Division and the City: Spatial Dramas of Divided Cities This paper is mainly concerned with the latter, ex- these differences are also layered with socio-economic tremely divided cities. More specifically, the aim is to cleavages. The importance of religion has diminished, observe their formation (how and why these cities -be causing Belfast’s conflict to be labelled as ethno-na- come divided) and how this formation influences their tional. physical structure (urban consequences and physical The walls are built at interfaces between