Cities, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp.

391–401, 2001
Pergamon  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Models of Urban Transformation

Informal Housing in Ankara

Özlem Dündar*
Gazi University, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Department of City and Regional Planning,
Celal Bayar Bulvarı 06570 Maltepe, Ankara, Turkey

Squatter housing (called gecekondu in Turkish) has been the central element of urban dis-
cussions in Turkey since the beginning of the 1950s. However, the solutions to this problem
have changed over time. Until the mid-1960s, governments had a negative attitude to squatter
housing areas and their populations, seeing them as the sources of social ills in the urban
system. Thus, renewal was defined as clearance and redevelopment. However, this situation
changed in the 1970s, preparing the necessary ground for rehabilitation and upgrading. In
contrast, in the 1980s renewal was evaluated in a global context and equaled regeneration. So,
following the 1980s, squatter housing areas have again been considered as problem areas which
have to be transformed for the capitalization of global interests, in the name of urban rent.
These areas could have been transformed into prestige areas to increase the physical and visual
wealth of the city. Thus, first with the improvement plans and later with the urban transform-
ation projects, squatter housing areas have been subject to urban renewal for the betterment
of urban space. This study aims to compare these two different squatter housing transformation
approaches from the point of view of their impact on the physical and social topography of
Ankara, the capital city of Turkey.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: renewal, squatter housing, gecekondu, urban transformation

Introduction under absentee ownership surrounding the urban

This study aims to compare two different squatter
housing (called gecekondu in Turkish) transformation
approaches from the point of view of their impact on
the physical and social topography of Ankara, the
capital city of Turkey. The gecekondu problem
appeared as a result of unprecedented dimensions of
rural-to-urban migration during the 1940s in Turkey.
This migration was started by the transformation of
agricultural cultivation technology and further stimu-
lated by the newly developing highway network, both
initiated by Marshall Aid from the USA. Gecekondu,
a form of make-shift housing, rapidly built by the
incomers, developed into extensive neighborhoods
constructed on vacant or public land or on farms
*Tel.: +90-312-231-74-00/2716; fax: +90-312-230-84-34; e-mail:
dundar@mmf.gazi.edu.tr
cores (Fig. 1).
These neighborhoods and their population were
first met by a negative official and public reaction. A
proposed solution was the demolition of these neigh-
borhoods followed by the building of social housing
by the government. Neither solved the problem as
multitudes continued to flow to cities. This dual pub-
lic approach to the problem continued and was
reflected in legal measures introduced by a series of
amnesty laws1 which legalized the existing gecekondu
neighborhoods and forbade building of new ones.
This latter decree remained in writing only, as
1
Governments realized that approximately 50% of the population
of Ankara were living in squatter housing areas. With such a large
number of people, it was impossible for a government to provide
enough alternative housing. So it was proposed to accept the squat-
ter areas as a part of the housing supply and to upgrade their infra-
structure and social services.

391
 Models of Urban Transformation: O Dündar
Figure 1 Squatter housing areas in Ankara, 1985. Source: author
incoming multitudes kept building new gecekondu
neighborhoods now protected by populist politicians
who discovered the voting potential of these migrants,
who were desperate to secure themselves in urban
socio-economic and physical spaces.
This conflicting dual attitude continued until the
1980s, by which time gecekondus covered almost half
of the urban space, some of which, in central locations
surrounded by the expanding city, gained a new
meaning as sources of potential location rent. The
governments changed their attitudes and developed
new measures to obtain a share, preferably the largest
share from this rent. In this context, two new meas-
ures were developed to provide for transformation in
gecekondu areas, both of which, together with their
impact on different spaces of the cities, will be dis-
cussed here.
Transformation through improvement and
development plans (IDP)
The concept of “transformation” in gecekondu areas
was first introduced by a series of Improvement and
392
Development Laws (IDL) issued after 1948. The
essence of this law group is different from the sub-
sequent ones which, as mentioned before, aimed to
legalize the existing gecekondus and forebade the
construction of new ones. IDL, on the other hand,
aims to create spatial transformation in gecekondu
areas and its two unique aims are to achieve “rapid”
transformation on a “mass scale” (Şenyapılı and
Türel, 1996: 13).
IDL involves rapid demolition in gecekondu areas,
unification of irregular, haphazardly formed parcels
and a redesign of them to create new parcels of
maximum 400 m2, to allow construction of four-sto-
rey apartment houses. This uniform approach is to
cover all kinds of existing gecekondu neighborhoods.
So now each gecekondu receives the right to own at
most a 400-m2 parcel of land and the right to build
at most a four-storey house.
Transformation was to be achieved by three routes:
1. Large development firms were to enter the most
advantageously located gecekondu areas in the
centers of the cities, transforming them into large
 Models of Urban Transformation: O Dündar
Table 1 Gecekondu stock and improvement plans which were implemented in Ankara (1991)a
Administrative district Existing gecekondu
area
(ha)
Altındağ 1668
Çankaya 2171
Etimesgut 633
Gölbaşı 264
Mamak 4147
Keçiören 1970
Sincan 9 9
Yenimahalle 957
Total 11,819
a
Sources: Şenyapılı and Türel (1996) (pp 43,44) and Büyükgöçmen (1997) (p 47)
scale, high-rise prestigious residential neighbor-
hoods. This was realized rapidly as large develop-
ment firms had political influence and financial
power to solve the very confusing ownership prob-
lems in gecekondu areas and the bureaucratic prob-
lems involved.
2. Small-scale developers who worked individually
with a system called “build-and-sell”2 entered
gecekondu areas which, although not located in or
very near to the city centers, were still advan-
tageously located, eg near access roads, near pres-
tigious residential neighborhoods or urban rec-
reation areas. These developers functioned in
especially the most accessible locations of such
neighborhoods, transforming the existing stock
into small-scale, four- to five-storey family houses
in exchange for a few apartments which they
obtained and eventually sold for profit.
3. In not so advantageously located gecekondu areas
and sections of gecekondu areas, the owners
attempted to transform their gecekondus into
small-scale family apartment houses with their
own savings or preferred to wait for the land rent
to increase to levels that would attract small-scale
build-and-sellers (Şenyapılı and Türel, 1996:
16,19).
Table 1 shows the stock of gecekondu land and
implementation scale of IDPs in Ankara. When it is
considered that 94% of improvement plans in
Altındağ and 69% in Çankaya Districts were finished
2
In build-and-sell types of housing supply, the owner gives his/her
land to a building contractor to build a multi-storey apartment block
in return for a number of housing units (50% generally) from the
block that will be built. The contractor, by the same token, takes
the remaining housing units. This type of housing supply has given
small investors the possibility of realizing high-rise apartment
housing with 10–20 units without large amounts of initial invest-
ment like land and to sell the housing units during the construction
process as well.
Implemented improvement plan area
ha %
1567 94
1495 69
368 57
264 100
4007 97
1893 96
100
957 100
10,580 90
in 1991, it is observed that transformation with
improvement plans was nearly totally achieved in the
second half of the 1990s (Fig. 2).
As to the impacts of transformation through IDP;
the problems which are created in areas that could be
transformed are as follows.
1. Increasing population density, as can be seen in
Table 2. Although population increases are very
high (all more than 100%), some of the districts
show enormous increases such as Etimesgut
(810.76%). The reasons of these differences are,
first, the differentiating development potentials of
the districts which lead to specific development
policies as in the case of advantageous inner city
areas.
2. The realization of low standard living spaces,
resulting from limited social services and green
area usage proposals, to obtain extra shares of the
increasing rent of the area. At this point, the urban
problem, which will be created in the future by the
urban land that is transferred with the improvement
plans, must be taken into consideration. This prob-
lem can be described as the transformation of sin-
gle-story gecekondus into apartment blocks and the
formation of deteriorating nuclei composed by
transition zones. The gecekondus that surround the
cities and even penetrate to the centers, carried a
potential of being rehabilitated during time
depending on their “flexible” characteristics. But
the current rapid and unqualified dense construc-
tions will eventually impoverish living conditions,
and concrete constructions are not able to be cor-
rected (Fig. 3). The improvement plans accelerate
this process rather than prevent it (Şenyapılı,
1998: 12).
3. Illicit rent transfer to gecekondu populations who
have managed to obtain houses on land belonging
to others without permission and taken under the
shelter of legal limits by the IDPs, from those who
cannot own a house.
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 Models of Urban Transformation: O Dündar

Figure 2 Improvement plan areas in Ankara, 1997. Source: Greater Municipality of Ankara
Table 2 Increasing population in gecekondu areas with the implementation of IDPs (1990)a

Admin. district Existing gecekondu population Proposed population by the IDL Population increase (%)

Altındağ 159,126 419,265 263.48

Çankaya 53,101 243,694 458.93
Etimesgut 32,942 267,080 810.76
Gölbaşı – – –
Keçiören 118,295 498,550 421.45
Mamak 210,187 680,036 323.54
Sincan – – –
Yenimahalle 194,839 302,126 155.06

Total 768,490 2,108,625 274.38

a
Source: Greater City Municipality of Ankara

4. The loss of neighborhood relations and mutual sup-
port because of intricate ownership structure, thus
damaging the fabric of society (Fig. 4).
In untransformed areas, problems are the tend-
encies of stopping internal dynamics of rehabilitation
and leaving the houses to decay, and to lack of main-
tenance, with the expectation of rent (Dündar, 1998:
200).
Transformation in gecekondu neighborhoods
of Ankara: urban transformation projects
(UTPs)
In the second half of the 1980s, large scale urban
renewal projects of slum areas of city centers, trans-
formed them into prestigious areas. Urban transform-
ation projects can be evaluated in a sense as the
implementations which are brought by global econ-
omy supported with new conceptual developments
and the transfer of the IDP approach to a greater scale.
Thus, urban transformation projects bringing new
concepts like public–private partnerships, supporting
high-rise constructions with multi-storeys and more
green space and social services, and achieving public
participation by listening to the gecekondu people, are
taking the place of the improvement plans.
All the projects have one common aim: to bring a
different solution to the areas which cannot be trans-
formed with the improvement plans because of low
rent, shared ownership and economic insufficiency of
the inhabitants. At present the gecekondu neighbor-

394
 Models of Urban Transformation: O Dündar
Figure 3 Left, settlement pattern of the gecekondu. Right, settlement pattern of the improvement plans. Source: YESKEP bro-
chure, Municipality of Yenimahalle
hoods of Ankara are located in eight different admin-
istrative districts. In three of these districts (Gölbaşı,
Keçiören, Sincan) transformation is planned to be
achieved through implementation of IDPs and for the
rest UTPs are in effect. The process started with two
large-scale projects covering gecekondu neighbor-
hoods located in two prominent valleys now enclosed
within the extended urban macroform. The projects
designed for the Dikmen Valley and the Portakal
Çiçeği Valley, are already implemented. Both projects
received a lot of support and stimulated others. The
ideas behind these projects were in fact centered
around a goal of regenerating these prestigious central
areas into luxury housing areas with office and central
facilities, also preserving the green character of the
valleys.
Dikmen Valley Housing and Environmental Devel-
opment Project proposed the regeneration of a tran-
sition area, located in close proximity to the centre of
Ankara, with a new organization model which can
be clarified as a reform of the Turkish administrative
system. The model of Dikmen Valley Project was to
enable contracting/finance firms to undertake con-
struction in a prestigious area by sharing the rent. This
was a public–private participation model, in which a
development corporation (Metropol A.Ş.) which had
been formed under the Greater Ankara Municipality,
took the role in coordinating the public and the priv-
ate firms.
The project encompasses a valley of 158 hectares,
which is an important element of Ankara Metropoli-
tan Area Culture and Recreation System, containing
2300 gecekondus with 9809 residents in 1989. The
project involved the demolition of all gecekondus.
The valley sides sloped gently, allowing for focal
grouping of housing units. So a total of 23 hectares
of the area (14.5%) in the valley was allocated to
housing and 18,000 people were settled in 404 hous-
ing units. Furthermore, at the junction points of new
transportation artery proposals, municipal service
areas which would include commercial and service
facilities and office space were allocated. These
would accommodate both the new population and also
strengthen the social infrastructure on the regional and
city scale (Fig. 5).
The second valley project in Çankaya District, Por-
takal Çiçeği Urban Development Project was one of
the green area projects of the municipality. Fifty-five
percent of the project area was in government owner-
ship and the rest was in private ownership. The new
municipality proposed a plan of housing and green
space for the valley with three aims:
1. to earn Ankara a green area with a contemporary
high urban standard without destroying the natural
characteristics of the valley;
2. to realize a self-financing project without making
the government reserve huge amounts of finan-
cial resources;
3. to allow the landowners to participate in the project
via a system that is not detrimental to their interests
(Göksu, 1991: 2).
To fulfil these aims, a company was set up with
the property owners, comprising the gecekondu
owners, the municipality, and the shareholders. The
Joint Stock Company of Portakal Çiçeği Valley Pro-
ject Development, Administration and Trading
(PORTAŞ) had an organization of “Land Develop-
ment”, “Project Management” or “Urban Renewal”.
PORTAŞ would buy the land from the shareholders
and would give a share from the construction in return
for a given percentage, proportionate to the size of
their lands and distribute the profits of the company
in return for their share (Göksu, 1991: 2,3). Moreover,
there would be representatives of the landowners on
the board of directors and board of control of
PORTAŞ. So all the project participants would be
involved in every level of project evaluation. In fact,
all decisions and principles of the project were real-
ized in agreement with the project participants who
became shareholders in this case.
395
 Models of Urban Transformation: O Dündar

Figure 4 Above, life in a gecekondu. Below, new housing in improvement plan areas

There were 67 squatter houses in the area, of which
38 were owned and 29 were rented. Portakal Çiçeği
Valley Project included housing, workplaces and
some social facilities in a green area (82% of the pro-
ject area). A total of 55,000 new dwelling units would
be built in three apartment blocks and a few small-rise
apartment blocks to be equally distributed between
landowners, municipality and the construction com-
pany. Following these two projects, district munici-
palities of Ankara developed similar transformation
projects for gecekondu neighborhoods located within
their boundaries. There is a common aim of the pro-
jects: transformation of the gecekondu areas into pres-
tige areas of high-rise apartment, luxury housing with
a model to enable contracting/finance firms to under-
take construction by sharing the rent (Table 3).
Organization models
Three of the transformation projects, in Süvari, Ege
and M.A. Ersoy neighborhoods, do not seem to pos-

396
 Models of Urban Transformation: O Dündar
Figure 5 Dikmen Valley today
Table 3 Settlement patterns provided by the urban transformation projects in Ankara
UTP Existing population
Dikmen Valley 9809
Portakal Çiçeği Valley 402
Yıldızevler 990
Aktaş-Atilla 800
Ege neighborhood 5300
Mehmet Akif Ersoy neighborhood 4000
sess organization and transformation models. In
Süvari neighborhood, the gecekondus will be replaced
by a green area because of the danger of erosion. But
there is neither a proposal for the transfer of owner-
ship rights nor an organization model for the trans-
formation of the land that will bring the necessary
grounds for the renewal of this gecekondu neighbor-
hood.
It has been planned that in Ege and M.A. Ersoy
neighborhoods, each gecekondu block is to establish
a cooperative. Furthermore, in the Ege neighborhood,
it has been pointed out that there will not be expropri-
ations, the original population will leave their parcels
and own new ones but which kind of appropriation
will be adopted for the existing gecekondus over the
land is not mentioned. The land ownership rights are
assumed to be developed when the transformation
process begins. The social service areas will be pro-
vided on the government land. So, ownership rights
will be transferred without any problem. Moreover,
the project proposes an overspill area in adjacent
municipal lands so that the project population can be
settled during the implementation (Ege Urban Trans-
Proposed population Population increase (%)
18,000 183.50
220,000 54,726.37
2345 236.87
1650 206.25
30,177 569.38
8000 200.00
formation Project Research and Evaluation Report,
1996: 36).
Lack of clearcut and realistic organization pro-
cesses of transformation in these projects implies that
although local governments aim to achieve rapid
transformation on a mass scale, they have not been
able to advance any further than using traditional
planning concepts and so it is most likely for their
plans to remain as documents only and their achieve-
ments will probably not surpass those of IDPs.
In contrast, the Aktaş-Atilla Urban Transformation
Project had an organization plan to begin with and
accordingly houses to be built were put up for bidding
in return for apartments to be received by developers.
Yet, no developer entered bids, because of low levels
of expected rent due to topographic thresholds exist-
ing in the area. Therefore, the municipality ended up
by establishing a development agency after the
Dikmen Valley Project example.
The Yıldızevler project has a rather different
organization model and transformation process.
Instead of establishing an ad hoc municipal agency,
this model is based on housing cooperatives. In other
397
 Models of Urban Transformation: O Dündar
words, the municipality has prepared the development
plan and transformation projects and has then left the
process to the market mechanism. At this stage, the
role of the municipality is limited to the encourage-
ment of building cooperatives based on voluntary
membership. In implementation, it was observed that
the level of organization was low and cooperative
building based on voluntary membership tended to
concentrate in certain areas of the neighborhood and
so failed to contain all. Therefore, the municipality
had to introduce staging and accordingly those resi-
dents who had been organized into cooperatives in
the first stage, demolished their gecekondus them-
selves and searched for and engaged developers to
build the new apartment houses. The other residents,
impressed by the developments, became organized in
the second and third stages to enter the transformation
process, although in this case the process of organiza-
tion covered five years.
This process shows that organization of transform-
ation in stages lends feasibility to the project as it
convinces hesitant residents as they observe partial
implementation. Realization of the project, even at a
limited scale, provides information about the process
and the end product, and thus generates a sense of
security, stimulating larger scale participation. Also
the possibility of an IDP increases the expectations
of the gecekondu population of gaining rent from their
land. So they resist participating in any transformation
project which will give them only the right of continu-
ing their existing situation on economic space and
sometimes making them worse off. But a precise
organization model that will put forward the project
proposals, along with the transfer of ownership rights,
will encourage them to participate in the urban trans-
formation projects.
Finance model
As to the finance models, the municipalities do not
share any means except the planning process and are
trying to find various ways that these plans may fin-
ance themselves. For example, in Altındağ it is stated
that an expropriation is not possible and a gas station
and a dormitory building are added to the plan in
order to obtain financial means to the dwellings. The
method applied for the participation of the project
population is as follows. Depending on the agree-
ments signed with the participants, the plots are
bought at high prices. After the plot value is sub-
tracted from the dwelling price that the owner has
declared, the difference is divided into instalments
and the owners are debted. It is expected that such
pay-back will be applied without any problems.
In Yıldızevler, it is seen that the whole finance is
left to the project participants. The only role of the
municipality is the plan making procedure. The fin-
ancial model of this project is as follows. The cooper-
atives agree with a firm on the basis of construction
area and share it. The municipality is not involved at
this point. The firms can pay the rental costs
398
depending on the agreements. The transformation
model of Yıldızevler is realized with a build–sell
model. The same financial model is proposed in M.A.
Ersoy neighborhood. It is essential that the munici-
palities will not be under any kind of financial burden,
and that the transformation will be obtained by build–
sell within the marketing mechanism and these sub-
jects will improve after the process begins. But, in
this project it is declared that the municipality will
create rent areas after the settlement rights are given.
These discussions show that there are two financial
models in urban transformation projects depending on
whether the objective is to make the projects finance
themselves, as in the case of the valley projects. One
is to open lands for facilities other than housing which
will increase the value of the project area, thus
allowing additional rent to be returned to the housing
areas. The second model is to leave the projects to
market forces in the hands of build-and-sell type
developers.
The first model seems to be realistic in economic
terms but it has some repercussions. First, to reserve
some of the project area for other facilities than hous-
ing decreases the amount of land vailable for social
services and increases the overall density. Secondly,
such facilities as a dormitory in Aktaş-Atilla neighb-
orhood and the municipal service area in Dikmen Val-
ley increase the rent of the area and thus the speculat-
ive pressures on the entire district. This, in turn,
attract additional facilities which are not planned in
the projects. Moreover, after the project’s completion,
increasing rent values results in the transformation of
these facilities into more valuable facilities, as in the
case of Dikmen Valley; the municipal service areas
are left to luxury housing after the project’s com-
pletion as a result of the speculative pressures on the
valley. Today there are two high-rise apartment
blocks on one side of the valley, increasing the den-
sity and placing additional pressure on the original
population in economic and social terms.
The second model, on the other hand, is nothing
more than the application of IDP’s financial system
and has the following results. Land which is not
advantageous for build-and-sell developers will not be
able to be transformed. Both of the projects that used
this model were in prestigious locations in the city so
this model was used without any problems. But it is
a fact that this model cannot be applied to every urban
transformation project.
Participation model
Participation has been the key to every planning effort
in Turkey as a reflection of public–private partnership
models and the increasing importance of citizen par-
ticipation in the world. First the valley projects, then
all other urban transformation projects, added partici-
pation to their organization models to prevent public
resistance to transformation and to increase their sup-
port rather than getting useful criteria from the orig-
inal populations to develop the planning schemes
 Models of Urban Transformation: O Dündar
themselves. In every project, one of the project prin-
ciples is to provide participation at every step of
implementation. But none of the projects define
“how?” In Aktaş-Atilla project, for instance, the
municipality organized public meetings to explain the
project to the neighborhood population, as in the case
of the valley projects. However, the valley projects
proved that this type of organization is nothing more
than information-giving, so it cannot possess an active
participation system in a democratic planning
environment.
Ege project is a good example in this respect. The
project population tried every means possible to stop
demolitions, although there is a waste disposal area
within the neighborhood which threatens their health.
Likewise in M.A. Ersoy neighborhood, the politicians
do not support the urban transformation project of the
municipality because of the reactions of the popu-
lation. The reason behind these reactions is mostly the
expectation of gaining two to three housing units in
return for their gecekondus, as they believe this is a
right given them with the IDPs.
Division of the project into phases, as in the case of
Yıldızevler, shows that public reactions can be used
positively in the organization of a participatory
organization model that will increase the implemen-
tation possibility of any urban transformation project.
Conclusion
Recent discussions about gecekondu neighborhoods
have focused on two areas. First, the necessity of
transformation of these areas, which are seen as prob-
lem zones, but which acquire prestige because of their
central location, and also by solving economic and
social problems. Secondly, the IDPs which were seen
as the only way of transformation until recently, either
cannot lead to successful results or cannot transform
gecekondu areas. At this point, urban transformation
projects provide new possibilities with a goal of
renewal especially in first generation gecekondu areas
which are within the extended urban macroform.
The best example of this situation is Ege district.
It is seen that this area has gained considerable pres-
tige with the investments made to its surroundings.
Çankaya-Mamak viaduct, that reduces the transpor-
tation to a mere 8 minutes, İmrahor Valley Recreation
Area, and Doğukent new settlement area, are the
environmental developments that elevate the prestige
of Ege district. These developments leave the area
under speculative pressures while reevaluating the
area and speeding up transformation. For this reason,
especially in projects that adopt transformation with
build-sell, speed up the renewal process but apart
from the improvement plans, low density and more
socio-cultural service expectations leave their place to
high density and the production of high standard
dwellings.
In this respect, the characteristics of luxury and
prestige that are created with the project’s visual
elements solve the physical problems of the gece-
kondu areas. However, implementation shows that
these projects transfer the economic and social
problems to the other parts of the city. For instance,
one of the goals of the municipalities is not to dis-
miss the original populations of the project areas
while transforming these areas. Allowing the exist-
ing gecekondu population to remain in the transfor-
med area is a desirable aim, but cannot be achieved
in the long-run. First the tenant population has not
been considered as project participants so an
important number of people have been dismissed
from project areas at the beginning. Later, project
participants are pushed from project areas by the
pressure of change.
This unexpected inner-city migration destroys the
social topography of the city. Additionally, problems
such as the inabilities of the gecekondu population to
integrate into the social life of the city deepen as a
result of such transformation efforts. These prove the
fact that social and economic expectations from such
problem areas are complementary, so it is not easy
to evaluate them in an integrative approach within a
process of transformation. Even the new organization
models proposed by the UTPs, which put forward
new concepts such as public–private partnerships,
self-financing and public participation with a different
view of planning than the IDPs, cannot propose an
efficient solution to this problem.
As to the physical transformation of the project
areas, one cannot say that UTPs create a totally dif-
ferent spatial pattern than the IDPs: from a low-den-
sity settlement pattern with large open areas,
designed at the human scale, to a high-density,
unliveable settlement pattern, from a lack of spatial
diversity to economic and social inaccessibility of a
diversity in space, from the anxiety of lacking social
services and green areas to the anxiety of losing
existing and proposed social service areas in the
future because of increasing rent values. UTPs rest
on the idea that horizontal growth with high-rise
apartment blocks gives the possibility of leaving
large areas for green areas and social services. But
this decreases the building density not the popu-
lation density. UTPs increase the populations of the
gecekondu areas as in the case of IDPs, so they put
pressure on space, not only in the project areas but
in the whole district as well (Fig. 6).
Yet, transformation of city sections makes pressure
on nearby areas by increasing land values. For
instance, the new settlement pattern of Dikmen Valley
Project put pressure of transformation on an adjacent
area, Yıldızevler. This exampe shows that any trans-
formation project forces rearrangements in the urban
macroform. This can be seen in the adjacent areas as
in the case of Yıldızevler or in the retransformative
activities of the early gecekondu areas transformed
before.
On the other hand, in the case of Dikmen Valley,
an area preserved for public use in the original pro-
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Figure 6 Transformation in Aktaŝ-Atilla neighborhood. Source: Municipality of Altýndağ

ject, was transformed into a luxury housing area as a
result of rent increases in the valley after the project.
This example proves the fact that social goals can eas-
ily be given up to meet economic expectations and
the original project aims can be subject to retrans-
formation with external effects of renewal in time.
Urban transformation projects, each designed in a part
of the city, do not possess an integrative planning
effort, thus leading to the approval of partial plans
without a decision for their effects on the overall
urban form. However, such a scheme can put these
projects on a city section to analyze their mutual inter-
action not only on physical space but on socio-econ-
omic development patterns.

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