Verticalities in comparison: Debates on high-rise construction in Izmir and Istanbul

Introduction

Representatives of professional organisations as well as high-ranking government officials have frequently described the construction industry as the ‘locomotive’ of the Turkish economy in recent years (see, e.g. Dünya, 2018; Türkiye Odalar ve Borsalar Birliği, 2015). High-rise projects have had a central part in this ‘locomotive’. This urban vertical expansion has been experienced most intensely in Istanbul, with 12 high-rises completed in 2014 alone. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), Istanbul is Europe’s tallest and the world’s 33rd tallest city calculated through the number of buildings taller than 150 m (The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), 2023a).

This vertical expansion is a spatial reflection of Istanbul’s increasing connection to global capitalism. From the beginning of the 1980s, Turkish economy liberalised and integrated into global markets through policies such as the liberalisation of the exchange rate (Boratav and Yeldan, 2006: 422). At the local level, Istanbul municipal authorities aimed at intensifying the financial, economic, and social connections of Istanbul to the rest of the globe during the same time period (Aksoy, 2019: 29). This aim was realised only partially in the 1980s and 1990s; yet, in the 2000s, when the ruling Justice and Development Party came to power, Istanbul became the centre of Turkey’s integration into global capitalism (Aksoy, 2019: 29–30). The district of Maslak and its surroundings, where the business centres and skyscrapers of Istanbul are concentrated, are the most globalised areas not only in Istanbul but also in Turkey (Ünsal 2005 as cited in Yalçıntan et al., 2019: 57). Even though many of the first skyscrapers built in Istanbul were the headquarters of Turkish companies (Yalçıntan et al., 2019: 57), skyscrapers are now the showcase of globalisation in Istanbul. In other words, Istanbul symbolises the country’s connections with global capital and this connection is spatialised in skyscrapers.

On the other hand, Izmir was a major economic centre in Anatolia in the 19th century (Kaya, 2010) but has not been integrated into global capitalism as intensely as Istanbul. In the mid-20th century, Izmir was an ‘underdeveloped metropolitan city’ (Kıray, 1972). Whereas Istanbul became the centre of Turkey’s integration into global capitalism in the 2000s (Aksoy, 2019: 29–30), Izmir has lost its significant position in the Turkish economy since the 1970s (Kaya, 2010). On the cultural side, Izmir is often positioned as having a unique situation in Turkey as it is stereotyped as an exceptionally secular city in a country where current state policies are often associated with Islamism. This contrasts with Istanbul, Turkey’s largest metropole that has been a backbone of the rise of the ruling Justice and Development Party.

The current article suggests that urban verticality, which is frequently associated with the Global North, is another axis through which understandings of difference between Istanbul and Izmir are established. The urban vertical transformation in Turkey is part of the urban vertical expansion experienced globally. Nevertheless, vertical transformation is negotiated in locally specific ways. Definitions of ‘high-rise’ change not only across countries but, as Yalıner and Doğrusoy (2016) show, they also change across cities in the same country. The 2007 Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Code defines a high-rise structure as one that is taller than 60.5 m whereas according to the 2012 Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Code, a building that has more than 13 stories including the basement or one that has a building height of at least 30.8 m can be defined as high-rise (İBŞB 2015 as cited in Yalıner and Doğrusoy, 2016).

Even as scholars debate the meanings and the validity of the categories of the Global North and the Global South, these concepts continue to help identify the differences between localities generated by their differential relationships to global capitalism. The Global South provides an alternative to the concept of the ‘Third World’‘to address spaces and peoples negatively impacted by contemporary capitalist globalisation’ (Mahler, 2017; np). Turkey is not one of the G77 countries, which are frequently associated with the Global South; it is in fact a G20 country and a member of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), often associated with the Global North. Nevertheless, besides Mexico, it is the only OECD country that is frequently positioned as ‘challeng[ing] the dominance of “Western/Northern World”’ (Mystri 2001 as cited in Haug, 2021: 2020).

In relation to this liminal position, geographer Sebastian Haug (2021) describes Turkey as a country ‘at the boundary between “North” and “South” in the field of international development’ (p. 2019). This liminality signifies that Turkey is not integrated into global capitalism as intensely as the Global North countries. Different urban centres in Turkey are not integrated into global capitalism with the same intensity either. This disparity intensifies the differentiated positioning of Turkish cities that is crystallised in debates on urban verticality in the Turkish media.

News media has been instrumental in reshaping the images of cities (see, e.g. Broadway and Broadway, 2018). The media transforms the ways urban centres are experienced. Scott McQuire (2008: vii) even conceptualises ‘the contemporary city’ as ‘a media-architecture complex’, where experiences of cities are formed through the workings of media technologies and the placement of such technologies in urban spaces. Therefore, the media is not only an intermediary showing how urban structures are understood; it is also an actor influencing how urban life is structured and experienced.

Media representations of urban buildings in Turkey have likewise been intertwined with the cultural, political, and economic context. To illustrate, in their study of Turkish media representations of housing between 1930 and 1980, Şahin and Şener (2021) show that the transformation of these representations reflects official discourses as well as changes in the social composition of cities. For example, apartment life was advertised in the early Republican Period as a reflection of the modern, gender-equal lifestyle of the newly-founded Turkish Republic in opposition to the traditional Ottoman housing that relied on the separation of sexes (Şahin and Şener, 2021: 432). Through these representations, the media undertook the role of ‘teaching’ the public about modern life (Şahin and Şener, 2021: 439). Starting in the 1950s, urban population increased because of internal migration and, therefore, the demand for housing in cities grew rapidly; as a result of this shift, advertisements about rental apartments became the dominant form of media representation of housing, replacing articles that concentrated on modern apartment life (Şahin and Şener, 2021: 436–439).

Acknowledging the discursive aspects of the production of space (Richardson and Jensen, 2003) and the role of the media in shaping urban life, this paper analyses a wide range of news articles on a skyscraper project in Izmir. I examine articles published in different local and national news sources. ¹ This diversity allows for a representation of multiple perspectives. The articles are from 2019, 2020, and 2021. This recent focus helps highlight the conditions of a period when Istanbul had already established itself as a high-rise metropolis and when the debates on vertical expansion in Izmir covered in this article heightened. All of the articles and statements were accessed online.

In what follows, I review the scholarship on urban high-rise construction. Next, I survey the juxtaposition of Izmir and Istanbul in media discourses against urban verticality. Finally, I situate these discourses in the recent growth of the construction sector and vertical expansion in Turkey. Thus, the article shows that, thanks to the weight of the construction sector in the Turkish economy and the heightened presence of high-rise buildings in Turkish cities, urban verticality, a phenomenon frequently associated with the Global North, has become a discursive axis at which urban centres ‘at the margins’ of the ‘Global South’ (Haug, 2021) exhibit their difference from each other. This article interprets such juxtapositions as instrumental in non-Global North urban centres’ resistance against being consumed by neoliberal urbanisation and global capitalism.

Urban vertical transformations

Urban studies scholarship has pointed out that the transformation of urban structures has recently become much more diversified compared to ‘previous cycles of capitalist urbanisation’ (Brenner and Schmid, 2015: 152). Building on Brenner and Schmid’s (2015) (as cited in Acara and Penpecioğlu, 2022: 3–4) formulisation of ‘planetary urbanisation’ as the dynamic intersection of ‘concentrated urbanisation’, ‘extended urbanisation’, and ‘differential urbanisation’, Acara and Penpecioğlu (2022) consider cities of the Global South as key to unearthing how various actors shape the differential manifestations of urbanisation. Scholars have analysed such urban change in the cities of the Global South and Global East by situating this globalised phenomenon in the international mobility of people (Hayes and Zaban, 2020; Navarrete Escobedo, 2020) and the mobility of transnational capital (Yang, 2020). This paper builds on this need to analyse the emerging ways actors in non-Global North contexts shape this diversified process. It adds to this literature by establishing urban verticality as a discursive axis through which urban centres outside the Global North, places that are differentially integrated into global capitalism, differentiate themselves.

High-rise buildings, structures that have become a ubiquitous example of globalisation, indeed arise as part of ‘local, specifically nationalist and often postcolonial enthusiasms’ (Jacobs, 2006: 7). In certain settings outside the Global North, high-rise structures continue to symbolise modernity and materialised forms of the future conceptualised in locally specific ways (Laszczkowski, 2011; Roche Cárcel, 2021). In some other contexts, such as the United Kingdom (Jacobs, 2006) and Puerto Rico (Fernández Arrigoitia, 2015), they can be understood as structures to be abolished, especially if they are associated with lower income individuals. In their introduction to the Theme Issue on ‘tower block “failures”’ in Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, guest editors Smith and Woodcraft (2020) point out that high-rise architecture has been commonly perceived as a ‘failed form’ that separates populations based on wealth differences (p. 5). Yet, they argue, tower blocks have multiple, often conflicting meanings including that of ‘modernist mass housing’, ‘transnational capital’, ‘social isolation’ as well as ‘global connectivity’ (Smith and Woodcraft, 2020: 5). The ‘verticality’ of tower blocks widens experiences and understandings of ‘segregation, exclusion and exclusivity’ (Smith and Woodcraft, 2020: 5). The Special Issue challenges the negative perspective on tower blocks and points out positive instances emerging in these structures such as ‘intimacy and connectivity’ (Guan as cited in Smith and Woodcraft, 2020: 6), which are conventionally not associated with verticality (Smith and Woodcraft, 2020: 6). In Ankara, the capital of Turkey, residents of squatter settlements who moved to high-rise building complexes through the initiative of the Turkish Housing Development Administration also had conflicting experiences but found ways to regenerate their previous lifestyles (Erman, 2016). For example, some adapted their cultural practices to their new neighbourhoods by organising traditional marriage ceremonies in the parking lots of their building complexes (Erman, 2016: 229–231).

State institutions, such as the above mentioned Housing Development Administration, can play an important role in shaping local manifestations of this global phenomenon and often benefit from the vertical transformation they support. The Singaporean state, for example, grows its ‘national potential’ by ‘arrang[ing] and organis[ing] volume’ (McNeill, 2019: 864). State institutions in Singapore redesign the city-state’s urban environment by mobilising a variety of technological tools including ‘skyscraper mobility technology’ (McNeill, 2019: 864) and ‘air-conditioning engineering’ (McNeill, 2019: 865). Thus, technical experts help state institutions reshape nation-states through high-rise urban restructuring (McNeill, 2019).

Confirming the role of states in vertical expansion, Australian state institutions also contribute to the ‘dramatic vertical expansion’ in Melbourne (Nethercote, 2019: 3394). Urban studies scholar Megan Nethercote (2019: 3394) suggests that, in return, high-rise buildings in Melbourne have served the needs of the state by contributing to the presentation of the city as both liveable and economically well off and, thus, helping the Australian metropolis attract economic and human capital (Nethercote, 2019: 3408). Moreover, the construction of high-rise buildings in Melbourne creates employment and economic value as it draws capital to the city, increasing the tax revenues of the state (Nethercote, 2019: 3409). Likewise, the Japanese state has played a central role in Tokyo’s transformation from a city dominated by low- and mid-rise buildings to one that is dominated by high-rise structures (Sorensen et al., 2010). Japanese state institutions have aimed at increasing ‘property development profits through a selective manipulation of building regulations’, thus, shaping the specifics of ‘urban restructuring’ (Sorensen et al., 2010: 558).

These examples demonstrate that urban verticality assumes different roles in locally specific neoliberal and modernist projects. Therefore, even if the phenomenon of high-rise architecture is global, its meanings are multiple and situated in their spatial and cultural contexts. As will be discussed in the coming sections, skyscrapers go beyond embodying different meanings in different Turkish cities and act as points of differentiation among these urban centres outside the Global North.

Not Istanbul: Turkey’s high-rise city

Istanbul has historically been an economic and political urban centre. After having been the centre of the Byzantine Empire for centuries, it became the capital of the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The city lost this status when Ankara became the capital city of Turkey in 1923. The moving of the capital from Istanbul to this Mid-Anatolian city symbolised a separation from the Ottoman imperial past. The new Turkish capital was designed to represent the nation-state and ‘the modernisation project’ of the Republic (Çınar, 2007).

Starting in the 1950s, Istanbul received large numbers of internal migrants as a result of urban industrialisation. The city became a part of the global economy as the Turkish economy was liberalised (Keyder, 2005). During this liberalisation process, new spaces and actors of consumption emerged. Various upscale communities were established far away from the city centre and thus, the housing landscape of Istanbul changed (Keyder, 2005). Even though municipal and central governments aimed at integrating Istanbul into the global world as early as the beginning of the 1980s, this was only fully achieved at the beginning of the 2000s (Aksoy, 2019: 29–30). Within this process, the restructuring of Istanbul shifted from a process of ‘informal globalisation’ (Keyder, 1999b as cited in Aksoy, 2019: 30) to an enormous state-led neoliberal globalisation (Aksoy, 2019: 30).

The changing landscape of Istanbul has been very costly for many people living in the city as recent construction projects have not always given the public benefit necessary attention due to the pursuit of profit and the pressure created by the ‘competitive city’ discourse (Şengezer et al., 2009: 78). For example, the social composition of central neighbourhoods changed through gentrification and urban transformation projects (Uzun, 2013: 235). Consequently, people from different social and political backgrounds express their dissatisfaction with this new landscape, stating that skyscrapers have ruined the historical silhouette of the city. These expressions reflect the dissatisfaction with Istanbul’s new landscape created through the city’s deep integration into global capitalist relations. Istanbul has come to symbolise the neoliberal urban transformation that is accelerated by current state actors and materialised in the numerous skyscrapers built in the recent years.

On the other hand, Izmir holds a different place in Turkish imaginary. The city is frequently juxtaposed with Istanbul when residents emphasise Izmir’s relaxed atmosphere as opposed to an allegedly Istanbulite chaos. It is also stereotyped as a secular urban centre (Demirtaş-Milz, 2010: 404–405), and thus having a unique place in a country where the impact of Islam on state discourses, as well as urban spaces, is more increasingly felt. Yıldırım and Haspolat (2010) point out that such stereotypes often lead to essentialist analysis and get in the way of capturing the complexity of Izmir. Nevertheless, they shape the way the city is conceptualised as an exceptional Turkish city.

Based on data collected in 2022, Izmir is Turkey’s third most-populated city with 4.4 million people (Türkiye Istatistik Kurumu (TUIK), 2023) and third tallest Turkish city with an office tower of 216 m being the tallest skyscraper in the city (The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), 2023b). Izmir has historically been a West Anatolian port. In fact, Istanbul and Izmir were ‘the most important export and import ports’ of the Ottoman Empire (Serçe, 2010: 24). The connection Izmir had with international networks, and therefore with foreign people, capital, and knowledge, situated Izmir as a ‘Western and sociable city’, distinct from Istanbul, the imperial capital (Talimciler, 2010: 464). Starting in the 18th century, Izmir ‘became the busiest port in Eastern Mediterranean’ (Kaya, 2010: 47). In the 19th century, the city was the second most important industrial centre of the Ottoman Empire after Istanbul (Kaya, 2010: 63–65). The city was also an important economic and cultural centre during the early years of the Turkish Republic. The First Economy Congress of Turkey was held in 1923 in the district of Izmir where the skyscraper discussed later in this article is planned to be built. Later, the congress was transformed into an international fair. The fair became a major centre of business and cultural life not only of the city but also the country (Ataturk Ansiklopedisi, 2021).

Just like Istanbul, Izmir was ethnically and religiously diverse in the Ottoman Period. This diversity declined in the last century. A major aspect of this decline was the dramatic decrease in the Greek population in Izmir after the first World War, which ended the Ottoman Era, and as a result of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Following rapid industrialisation and decline of agriculture in the mid-20th century, Izmir received large numbers of internal rural migrants (Eğilmez, 2010: 615–616). This increase in the population was accompanied by the emergence of squatter settlements (Eğilmez, 2010: 615), unplanned urbanisation, and the decline of historical buildings (Özsoy, 2009: 230–231). In the mid-20th century, craftsmen, small shop owners and small capitalist investors constituted Izmir’s economic actors. Sociologist Mübeccel Kıray (1972) described Izmir as an ‘unorganised’ and ‘underdeveloped metropolitan city’ pointing out the lack of a bourgeois organisation and culture in the city. Starting in the 1970s, the city started getting a smaller share of public investment and lost its status as Turkey’s second largest industrial centre (Kaya, 2010: 91). A recent manifestation of the lack of support from central state institutions was demonstrated by a tweet by the municipal mayor of the city regarding the diminutive 3000 Turkish Lira-budget (approximately 160 USD) reserved by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure for the construction of a subway in Izmir (Soyer, 2023). Izmir’s economic decline is reflected in the human capital drain it has experienced starting in the 1980s (Talimciler, 2010: 466). Nevertheless, Izmir is still an important touristic and agricultural centre in Turkey. Moreover, as Genç et al. (2021) state, Izmir has established deep connections with its hinterland as well as global capital networks, thus forming a city-region.

Even though the city is no longer the second economic centre in the country, as it was in the 19th century, it has experienced processes of urban change similar to those in Istanbul. A main aspect of this change has been urban transformation projects, which the current website of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality in 2023 defines as ‘the comprehensive process of project planning that takes into consideration the economic, spatial and social circumstances in solving urban problems and ameliorating unhealthy urban textures’ (İzmir Büyükşehir Belediyesi, n.d). These projects were mostly introduced as solutions to infrastructural problems lower income individuals faced in their neighbourhoods and to replace poorly-built houses in Turkish cities that sit on active fault lines and are vulnerable to earthquakes, as is the case both for Istanbul and Izmir.

Urban studies scholars have pointed out that these projects integrate lower income neighbourhoods into processes of neoliberal restructuring of cities. Kuyucu and Ünsal (2010: 1480) describe ‘these large renewal programmes’ as ‘the primary mechanisms by which a capitalist logic is imposed on urban land and housing markets, especially in incompletely commodified informal housing areas and “rundown” inner-city neighbourhoods’. In various manifestations of this capitalist restructuring of central neighbourhoods, residents of low-rise structures move to higher apartment buildings on the peripheries of their cities while high-rise structures are built in these central districts. This transformation alters the daily lives of urban residents dramatically.

Eranıl Demirli et al. (2015), for example, show that the residents of the central Izmir area named Kadifekale were moved from their low-income neighbourhoods, where they lived in low-rise structures, to apartment blocks in the periphery of their city. This change of living conditions caused various social problems for residents including isolation from their neighbours and the rest of the city. Therefore, these projects transformed not only the city landscape but also the composition of neighbourhoods and had negative social consequences (Eranıl Demirli et al., 2015).

To sum up, Izmir has partly retreated from being central to Turkish economy in the last 50 years; yet, the city’s central neighbourhoods have gone through urban transformation processes similar to those in Istanbul. Thus, the city finds itself in an ambivalent position in relation to such transformations. It is in need of capital investment while actors situate Izmir as distinct from Istanbul, the Turkish centre of neoliberal global capitalism. Within this context, proposals for large urban projects in Izmir potentially involving skyscrapers were widely criticised in the media and academic scholarship. For example, in 2003, the plans of a ‘new city centre’ that would connect and develop the northern and the southern parts of the city were announced by the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, which Tutar and Bal (2019) read as a reflection of neoliberal urbanisation in Turkey. Erdik and Kaplan (2009) also argue that the plan was mostly developed with investors in mind.

Within this historical context where projects involving high-rise buildings have been criticised for their capitalistic motives, various actors protested the project regarding a skyscraper that is to be built by Zorlu, an Istanbul-based Turkish multinational company, in the central Izmir district of Konak. The criticisms stemmed from worries about the possible destruction of cultural and historical characteristics of the district and the assumed capitalistic motives behind the project. Konak, where the skyscraper is to be built, is a central coastal district housing other skyscrapers, hotels, historical sites and administrative buildings including the building of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality. The district also houses Kültürpark, a large green space with various amenities including swimming pools, exhibition halls and entertainment centres. The park has also historically housed the Izmir International Fair since the year the Turkish Republic was founded. This event has been central to the economic and cultural life of the city as well as the country. Yet, the fair lost this central position in the Turkish economy parallel to the marginalisation of Izmir in Turkey. The park started losing its importance as the host of the fair and has been used more as a green space since the 2000s (Şahin, 2022: 45).

In the criticisms on the skyscraper project, Istanbul appears as a trope showcasing the problems such high-rise projects create. Local and regional news media reported that actors that are concerned with urban rights and the representatives of several non-governmental and occupational organisations including the Izmir Chamber of Architects, Izmir Bar Association and Izmir Medical Chamber protested the skyscraper project. Representatives declared that constructing this skyscraper would be an ‘urban crime’ and that they would not ‘let Izmir become [another] Istanbul’ (Candemir, 2019). A local newspaper, Ege Telgraf, cited Abdül Batur, the mayor of the Konak Municipality, stating that they would hinder the transformation of Izmir into another Istanbul through this skyscraper project (Şentürk, 2020). SoL, a leftist news website, also described the skyscraper project as potentially making ‘Izmir like Istanbul’ and suggested that the project was yet another example of capitalists extracting profit from the city (SoL, 2019). The article also hints at the existence of an inter-regional relationship of power describing this extraction as ‘Istanbul capital dominating Izmir’ (SoL, 2019).

The skyscraper project was also criticised because of its potential harm to the city landscape similar to the destruction of Istanbul’s historical landscape by skyscrapers. A central theme in the discussions was the height of the building. An article in a local newspaper quotes H İbrahim Alpaslan, the chairperson of Izmir’s Chamber of Architects, warning against such potential negative effects (Ege Postası, 2019). Alpaslan states that the high-rise building would be taller than Kadifekale, a 186 m hill where the remains of a third century (BCE) castle originally built by one of the commanders of Alexander the Great still stands. The chairperson stresses the historical and cultural importance of the area by likening this part of the city to the Acropolis of Athens and mentioning that the Ottomans had also built one of their first mosques here. He names this skyscraper project, which would stand taller than the historic castle, a ‘betrayal’ (Ege Postası, 2019). Atilla Sertel, a member of the National Parliament from the main opposition party, to which the mayors of both the Konak district and Izmir Metropolitan Municipality also belong, presented a critical stance as well. Sertel is quoted stating that the skyscraper would be similar to ‘a dagger in the heart’ of Izmir (Yıldız, 2019). Sertel’s remarks point to the fact that the district where the skyscraper was to be built is located at the centre of the city.

Tunç Soyer, the mayor of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, on the other hand, stated that he was not against the construction of this high-rise building. He is quoted in a national newspaper asserting that Izmir is known for barriers against capital investments in the city but investors should not be discouraged from financing projects there (Sözcü, 2019). An article on A3haber, a local news website, suggested that the mayor’s remarks were confusing because he was contradicting himself, as, before the elections, he had suggested that he was against the skyscraper project (Yıldız, 2019). The mayor’s remarks were contradictory to his usual position regarding urban policies because he is also a pioneer of the Cittaslow Movement, which presents an alternative to growth-oriented urban policies. Nevertheless, his remarks point out the connection between skyscrapers and capital investment and the image of Izmir as a city that is unwelcoming of capital flow.

The plans that enable the permits for the skyscraper were reported to be rescinded through the suit brought by the Izmir Branches of the Chamber of Architects and the Chamber of Urban Planners (BirGün, 2020). The plans for the building were once again approved by the local municipality and the metropolitan municipality in 2021 (Ulu, 2021). However, this approval involved the decision by the Metropolitan Municipal Council, to which Tunç Soyer the metropolitan mayor also belongs, to reduce the height of the skyscraper to 84 m. This reduction aimed at protecting the urban silhouette (Izmir Büyükşehir Belediyesi, 2022). This decision has been brought to trial (Yeni Asir, 2022) and the building has still not been built as of the beginning of 2023.

These examples illustrate that Istanbul has become a trope in oppositions against high-rise architecture projects in the Turkish media. Istanbul symbolises the victory of neoliberal capitalistic motives against ecologically conscious versions of urbanisation that take into consideration the needs of local people. Skyscrapers appear as the material reflections of this victory. As the remarks of the municipal mayor suggest, Izmir is often interpreted as a city to which capital cannot easily flow and the oppositions against skyscraper projects in Izmir are often interpreted as hindrances to capital movement to the city. In these debates, high-rises become an axis of differentiation between these two urban centres in Turkey, integrated into global capitalism in unequal ways.

Vertical expansion in Turkey

Similar to Japan (Sorensen et al., 2010) and Singapore (McNeill, 2019), the construction sector in Turkey has been actively supported by the state. Since 2002, when the Justice and Development Party came to power, this support has intensified. The state has taken an increasingly active part in the sector through institutions such as The Housing Development Administration (TOKI), which has built 500,000 houses between 2002 and 2011 (TOKI, n.d.). This support for the construction industry has been instrumental for the ongoing success of the party because it has not only helped nourish construction companies but also enabled people with low-income to buy houses (Öniş, 2019: 211).

Yeşilbağ (2016) situates the growth of the Turkish construction sector in the global neoliberal boosting of real estate and finance sectors (p. 600). Neoliberal policies have indeed reshaped the legal framework of construction and, relatedly, Turkey’s urban landscapes in the last decades (Aksoy, 2019; Balaban, 2011; Öktem, 2011). The legal restrictions that would have otherwise hindered the growth of the construction sector and the implementation of ‘large-scale urban (re)development projects’ were loosened through deregulations (Balaban, 2012: 26).

Istanbul, Turkey’s largest metropolis with 16 million people (Türkiye Istatistik Kurumu (TUIK), 2023), has been at the centre of this transformation. A series of legal changes enabled local and national state institutions to restructure Istanbul starting as early as the 1980s (Öktem, 2011). These changes accelerated Istanbul’s deep integration into global capitalism. As Öktem (2005) points out, state officials marketed Istanbul as a ‘global city’ and utilised this discourse to reshape the city landscape. In the last decades, various new skyscrapers, which have been central to this urban change, were built in Istanbul’s central districts (Öktem, 2011: 37). Within this process prioritising capitalist interests in the construction industry, Uğur and Aliağaoğlu (2018) assert, skyscrapers created ‘non-places’ broken off from their local cultural surroundings. In addition to the negative local effects of vertical expansion, this transformation also created a divide between Istanbul and Turkey’s other urban centres. It did so by ‘exacerbat[ing] the [wealth] gap’ between Istanbul and other cities in the country (Öktem, 2011: 37).

Situated in this historical context, various Turkish media actors have long been sceptical of high-rise structures. As early as in the 1960s, articles that opposed the construction of high-rise buildings were published in the Turkish media. For example an article in the Akis news magazine suggested that skyscrapers were argued to be built because they reduced construction costs; however, the article argued, this was not true and skyscrapers created more problems than they solved (Akis, 1964: 32). In 1967, an article published in the same news magazine criticised the fact that a skyscraper-hotel replaced a historically important hotel as a meeting point for Ankara elites (Erel, 1967: 11–12). In a more recent example, the dystopian novel titled ‘Skyscraper (2006)’ by the renowned Turkish writer Tahsin Yücel (2006) also depicts the dystopian Istanbul as destroyed by uniformly built skyscrapers.

The media coverage analysed in the present article also depicts Istanbul as a negative example of urban verticality whose connection to its past is ruined by skyscrapers. High-rise buildings are described as contradicting the characteristics and the histories of their urban environments. The public is warned against similar threats in Izmir. In multiple accounts, Izmir is represented as a city not yet completely penetrated by the capitalism that ruined Istanbul. This juxtaposition is rooted in the fact that the vertical expansion in Istanbul came to symbolise the neoliberal urban transformation the city has gone through in the last decades. This change is frequently understood as a reflection of neoliberalisation that has been experienced in various areas of life in Turkey (see Özbay et al., 2016 for a discussion of different aspects of neoliberalism in Turkey).

Conclusion

In media debates on verticality in Turkey, urban centres, as in the case of Izmir, are frequently contrasted with Istanbul as the quintessential illustration of urban vertical expansion. These juxtapositions with Istanbul act as major pillars for arguments opposing the construction of high-rise buildings, as is the case in Izmir. This concentration of understandings of difference around high-rise is made possible by (1) the recent centralisation of the Turkish economy around construction, (2) the hyper-visibility of skyscrapers as a materialised indication of the construction industry and (3) the concentration of Turkey’s urban transformation in Istanbul. Therefore, high-rise structures in Istanbul have become one of the most easily noticed symbols of global neoliberal capitalism in urban Turkey.

Different urban centres are integrated into global capitalist networks that connect actors in the Global North and the Global South in different ways. Accordingly, for example, Istanbul is often depicted as already absorbed into neoliberal capitalist relations whereas Izmir is posited as a city that is still not consumed by global neoliberal capitalism. Within this framework, articulations of difference can be interpreted as axes of resistance against a deep integration into neoliberal capitalist relations. High-rise buildings, structures frequently associated with the Global North, have become symbols of difference between cities ‘at the margins’ of the ‘Global South’ (Haug, 2021).

This example posits urban verticality as a point of convergence where differences are articulated. Further research can help unearth other manifestations of the multiplicity of responses to vertical expansion. Analysing such emerging expressions would help show under which circumstances high-rise buildings become central to negotiations of difference. Examining examples from the Global South and the Global East can especially be fruitful since high-rises in the non-Global North take on meanings different from those in the Global North. This research can help further diversify representations of verticality in the urban studies scholarship.