Resilience of a contested high street: The changing image of Tunali Hilmi Street in Ankara, Turkey

ABSTRACT

Globally designed shopping spaces constitute a threat to on-street retail, which provides citizens a mix of activity patterns, including shopping, leisure and socializing. Consumers seem to prefer controlled mall environments due to problems in urban centers such as heavy traffic, limited parking, crowding, density and security concerns. The Turkish situation, however, indicates a different trend, with lively inner-city streets co-existing with highly acclaimed shopping malls. This paper addresses changing retail patterns on Tunali Hilmi Street, the first high street in Ankara, which reflects socio-economic and cultural dynamics of the last two decades in urban Turkey. This is a result of organic changes in the street’s historical and demographic features as well as in Turkey’s broader political and cultural environment. Since the millennium, the street has lost its distinctive quality as well as much of its upper-class clientele. The new visitor profile has been perceived by previous users as an invasion and threat to modern urban life. Recently, immigrants and refugees are starting to be seen on the street due to a nearby immigration office, which has caused further reaction. The paper’s extended timespace analysis of Tunali Hilmi Street reflects an overall shift in urban life in Turkey.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Nesim Erkip, a participant observant who lived on and visited Tunali for years, for his valuable comments on the earlier drafts of the manuscript; Halil Yurtkuran, who lived and worked on Tunali since 1970 and was one of the founding members of KAM; and Bulent Batuman for his valuable remarks on distinction in Tunali context. The author is grateful for the comments of the editor and the two reviewers, which contributed to development of the main arguments of the manuscript. The author is also grateful to her friends and collective memories that made “going to Tunali” not simply a spatial but also a special experience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Here, I need to explain my choice of terminology: high street or main street are used for inner city commercial streets of British and American cities, respectively. I believe that high street reflects Tunali’s situation better; among many lively streets in the urban core, it once differentiated with its leisure and cultural offerings supporting social connections. (For an account of British town centers and high streets under the pressure of out-of-town and online retail, see Wrigley & Lambiri, 2014.)

2. Although a few global brands are still located on Tunali, the impact of global consumption patterns is not very evident. Overall, only one-quarter of the brands available in Ankara are international, and they mostly prefer to locate in shopping malls. This indicates that street retail businesses in Ankara have a predominantly local character (Ercoskun-Yalciner & Ozuduru, 2014).

3. Interviews with the owner of a coffee shop and previously a market on the street who is also one of the founding members of Kavakliderem—the NGO of the streets’ retailers—various times between 2016 and 2019 and with a real estate agent on January 16, 2010. We also interviewed with many visitors as a part of a project on urban retail in Ankara (F. Erkip & Kizilgun, 2011). An additional source of information on Tunali is Eksisozluk—a collaborative website similar to www.reddit.com—which has hundreds of entries on Tunali’s prominence for Ankara (eksisozluk.com).

4. Vakko was established as a national brand in 1938 by a hatmaker and started producing silk and cashmere scarves until it opened its first store in 1962 in Istanbul. Its first store in Ankara opened in 1973 in Kizilay. From then on it extended its product range from luxury accessories to clothing for various segments. Its closest competitor Beymen, also a national brand established as a family business opened its first store in 1971 in Istanbul and started selling its products in the same year in Ankara. Currently, both of them host global brands as a part of their retail supply in addition to products of local designers.

5. Arcades (pasaj (singular) in Turkish, originating from the French word for “passage”) are a common and traditional form of commerce in Turkey, characterized by small stores selling various goods and services in a closed building with entrances from the street.

6. Reasons of this change in demand structure require further analysis in relation to Turkey’s political climate under AKP rule during the last 15 years. While such exploration is beyond the scope of this study, we can conclude from recent indicators that the reasons are twofold: (1) obstacles and delaying tactics by local authorities; for example, a newly opened and elegant restaurant on Tunali struggled for months to obtain a license to serve alcohol (Yurtkuran, 2019). (2) And a more conservative visitor profile, geared more toward traditional spaces.

7. The bad vacancy rate is still relatively low on Tunali, but two large spaces have remained vacant for years. One was a movie theater named after the district, but that has been closed for more than a decade now. The name (Kavaklidere) is still intact as a reminder of Tunali’s good days. Another large store in Karum shopping mall was previously rented by Zara but has been empty for more than five years. In both cases, high rent is the reason for this situation, which harms the street and the mall alike (Yurtkuran, 2016).

8. It is shown that alternative traffic arrangements and control policies are feasible for Tunali to calm traffic and make walking easier (Dogan, 2014).

9. Income inequality and unemployment have been on the rise in Turkey, and have affected this situation. Loitering became common in many areas but Tunali is a more attractive target due to its leisure character. There are also organized loitering groups—using mostly under-age kids begging on affluent streets. There is not a visible intervention on these actions by the police or municipality officers.

10. According to the official figures, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey was more than 3.5 million in 2019. (multeciler.org.tr), almost all living in urban areas. Ankara has a Syrian population of about 95,000. Due to unemployment, the urban poor see them as a threat for very competitive unqualified jobs. More affluent citizens have a negative attitude to both groups in general.

11. After 25 years of conflict between GMA and the district municipality, in 2019 local elections, the CHP candidate became the mayor of GMA. Hence, both GMA and the District Municipality of Kavaklidere started to be governed by the members of the same party. This change is expected to affect Tunali positively, since it was one of the most contested urban spaces between two opposing parties.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Feyzan Erkip

Feyzan Erkip is a retired professor who worked in the Department of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture and the Department of Interior Architecture of Environmental Design at Bilkent University. She received her PhD from the Department of City and Regional Planning at Middle East Technical University. She served as a member of the editorial board of Cities. She received URBANNET, Middle East Research Competition and TUBITAK research awards. Her research interests include urban transformations and consumption sites, leisure practices and spaces, environmental psychology and environmental design research.