Squatter housing transformations in Turkey after 2002: public choice perspective

Abstract

This article uses the public choice perspective to examine the squatter housing transformations in Turkey implemented by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) after 2002. AKP used the discourse of earthquake risk to the public for speeding up and legitimating transformation projects and reducing social opposition. However, in practice the principal purpose of these transformation projects has been to increase voter support for the AKP by increasing economic growth and employment, obtaining revenue, and using this revenue for social housing projects. This paper concludes that transformation projects, where economic goals have priority, stimulate the economy and satisfy the government in the short term but harm the transformation itself and the squatter community.

Keywords:

• Urban transformation
• squatter housing
• public choice theory
• Turkey

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to the editor/s and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.