Ecumenopolis is a word invented in 1967 by the Greek city planner Constantinos Doxiadis to

represent the idea that in the future, there will be a single continuous city in the World
relatedly with the current growth of urbanization and population. From a first impression, this
statement may be seen as a dystopian World perspective. However, the report published by
the United Nations (2018) highlights that 55% of the World’s population lives in urban areas,
and it is prospective that it will increase to 68% by 2050. This rapid growth in cities, which
occur to have metropolises, is usually constituted in uncontrolled ways because of the rent-
seeking states. Along with the documentary film Ekumenopolis: City without Limits, this
writing will explain the malignant urban transformation and its dynamics.

İstanbul is started to transform as the primate city of Turkey to become a metropolis. With the
industrialization, manufactories, which settled in the İstanbul, started to take a critical part in
the economy. Most of the people wanted to take part in this progressive economic activity
because of the requirement of money; this process was the cause of the migration from rural
areas to the industrialized areas. However, this migration was uncontrolled, irregular, centered
only in the İstanbul, does not offer various options to the public since all of the economic
activities happen there. These expatriated people collapsed in İstanbul and started to become
cheap labor for the capital movement. Since these people are beneficial for the companies and
company owners, the social conditions are ignored, and the government connivance the fact
of squatting.

Neoliberalism coming and destruction of the social state affected metropolises, which become
the motion of capital. In the process, urban spaces started to profit the capital, and workers
become more impoverished than before, rich people become more prosperous than before.
Özkan (2017) describes these effects, and interclass variance deepens and causes social and
spatial disintegration. This privatization brought accumulative funds of the government, and it
started to serve to estate rent. After constructing the second Bosphorus bridge in 1988, as
mentioned in the documentary, İstanbul’s territory is started to marketing Toki,
municipalities, domestic and foreign capital. Capital powers started to force the working class
to move from city centers to outside for providing new spaces for the upper class (which is an
outcome of the uncontrolled urban settlement at the start of industrial urbanization).
Sumptuous structures that are one of the prooves of the class discrimination constructed to
legitimate novation Working-class affected and suffered from this urban transformation, the
living spaces that government allowed them to built are destroyed, and since there is no social
state understanding anymore, their social needs are ignored in the process.
At this point, it may be essential to highlight the Housing Development Administration of
Turkey (TOKİ). This collective housing project occurred under the aim of decreasing the
labor costs and providing them living spaces out of the city center. According to Yılmaz (n.d),
the first digress of this project can be seen when the practices in the turkey analyze. There are
approximately 282 thousand dwellings, and approximately 20 thousand of them are aimed at a
low-income group, which demonstrates that around 7% of the projects are for these people.
These data can show the fact that Toki becomes a profit-oriented organization. Moreover,
Toki brings along social problems. This low-cost housing caused a separation between living
spaces and social spaces. They are located far from shopping, gathering, consuming, working
spaces, and business opportunities; they do not provide a zone from children. Toki buildings
also have a role in the process of widening the gap between social, economic classes since it
spares the cities in the meaning of economic status. Therefore, the social environment is not
provided, and it is like an isolated area void of the other runnings of the city.

Apart from all of these social and spatial problems in İstanbul, the city’s population was
getting higher, and it is bringing the traffic problem. İstanbul was already not a sustainable
city, and the sources were not fulfilling the needs of the city. Under these circumstances, the
project for a 3rd bridge over the Bosphorous occurred to decrease traffic density. Even though
it is introduced as an eco-friendly project that will not be harmful to any green area, it is
minatory for nature. It is stated in the documentary that new roads will accompany settlement.
Therefore, when there is a new bridge located North of Istanbul, there will be new buildings,
shopping centers in the North of the city. These new settlements will be brought new people
and new needs along with it; the consumption of the city and the resource utilization will
increase in these senses. The population increase in Kağıthane and Ümraniye, after the
construction of the second Bosphorus bridge, is an example of this process.

To conclude, the dynamics of transformation and urbanization is affecting the city in social,
economic, environmental ways. Istanbul, the most accurate city to explain the urban
transformation in Turkey, is expressing the possible outcomes when a city is transformed
separately from the country's overall urbanization process. When there is only concern about
the profit of the capital, the company, the mechanism of the city may start deterioration. With
the consideration of the public from all the economic and social classes, steadily developed
cities will occur.
Beyza Eylül Ergün

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