TOKI territorial scripting
2004/2009
Andreas Faoro

The main actors of the urban transformation projects in Turkey are KIPTAS and TOKI (Housing Development Administration of Turkey). TOKI is a state department aimed at building social housing for low-income citizens. However, it is both a collaborator with municipalities and a private business responsible for urban clearance projects, which intend to replace poor, ethnically marked communities.
The greater municipality of Istanbul initiated KIPTAS, to build and sell houses through a mortgage facility. Working together they represent a localized version of neo-liberal urban condition and rescaling, a version of what David Harvey describes as neo-liberalism that: “...generates a complex reconstitution of state-economy relation in which state institutions are actively mobilised to promote market-based regulatory arrangements”. By introducing urban policies that allow displacement of inhabitants, shifting their ownership and property rights, using Istanbul’s image as a marketing tool for local and foreign investors and manipulating urban fears (terrorism, earthquake, safety) combined, are all components that define urban clearance and rescaling.
Throughout the year 2000, Istanbul witnessed the emergence of large-scale urban transformation projects under the headings of “urban renovation/urban development” which legitimized ‘demolishment’ and ‘reconstruction’ via abstract discourses of urban fear, ecology, cultural heritage and natural disasters. In 2005, the Urban Transformation and Renewal policy of 5366 accelerated the urban renovation/developments and it gave power to the municipalities to declare any district as an urban transformation area and to control what property rights, urban planning and architectural projects could be applied.

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