Shifting Scales of Urban Transformation: The emergence of the Marmara Urban Region between 1990 and 2015

Provincial borders and metropolitan theories are insufficient to explain the scale and dynamics of İstanbul’s contemporary urban development. The mega projects of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) such as the İzmit Bay Bridge, the Northern Projects, the Marmaray Project and the İstanbul-Ankara High Speed Train point to a scalar shift. Triggered by mega projects, these emerging spatio-temporal relations transcend İstanbul’s administrative borders. In the light of these developments, this study will use the term “region” to explain the emerging scale in and around İstanbul; and therefore will propose a new terminology and method to represent this new scale. The study will begin with an introduction to urban theories and concepts that explain contemporary “planetary urbanization” (Lefebvre, 2003; Brenner 2014) beyond fixed-monocentric models and constructed dichotomies such as urban-rural or built environment-nature. This theoretical framework will be followed by a discussion on the method and will then continue with a summary of the urban governance structure in Turkey and the urban planning history of the Marmara Region. Subsequently, the land-use-based analyses which enabled the researcher to demonstrate the transformation of the Marmara Region between 1990 and 2015 from different angles will be discussed. The dissertation will conclude with an overall evaluation of the findings