{"id":33627,"date":"2011-05-13T09:56:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T06:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=33627"},"modified":"2023-04-30T13:41:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T10:41:27","slug":"two-new-cities-a-catastrophe-for-istanbul-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/05\/13\/two-new-cities-a-catastrophe-for-istanbul-experts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Two new cities\u2019 a catastrophe for Istanbul, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISTANBUL \u2013 H\u00fcrriyet Daily News<\/p>\n

The prime minister said Wednesday building two new settlements near Istanbul will help provide safer housing for the city residents living in earthquake danger zones. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The prime minister said Wednesday building two new settlements near Istanbul will help provide safer housing for the city residents living in earthquake danger zones.<\/p>\n

The prime minister said Wednesday building two new settlements near Istanbul will help provide safer housing for the city residents living in earthquake danger zones.<\/p>\n

Plans to add two new settlements to Istanbul will be a \u201ccatastrophe\u201d for the environment and the city\u2019s ecosystem, and it will not solve the earthquake problem, according to experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo new \u2018districts\u2019 in Istanbul would be a catastrophe for the environment,\u201d Beyza \u00dcst\u00fcn, a member of Istanbul\u2019s Environment Engineers Chamber and professor at Y\u0131ld\u0131z Technical University, told the H\u00fcrriyet Daily News in a phone interview on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Istanbul will be unable to breathe, as the only remaining forest areas and water basins in the northern part of the city will be destroyed, according to \u00dcst\u00fcn. \u201cThis will have devastating effects not only on humans, but on the whole ecosystem in the city.\u201d She also said the few remaining agricultural fields in the area would also be destroyed.<\/p>\n

The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, confirmed Wednesday the ruling Justice and Developing Party\u2019s, or AKP\u2019s, plans to add two new settlements in northern Istanbul. According to the plan, one of the new cities will be built in largely uninhabited mining areas along the Black Sea coast on Istanbul\u2019s European side, where the risk of earthquakes is lower. The other will be built on the Anatolian side of the city. Though the party is using the term \u201ctwo cities\u201d for the plan, the proposed settlements will be built as new extensions of Istanbul rather than constructing two separate cities.<\/p>\n

Making plans that destroy the environment where people live in is incompliant with the constitution, according to \u00dcst\u00fcn, who said they would keep struggling to protect the environment both through legal ways and through people\u2019s resistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project will not solve the earthquake resistance problem of the city, it will just create new economic value. New cities imply new problems,\u201d Tayfun Kahraman, the chairman of Istanbul\u2019s City Planners Chamber, told the Daily News on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The prime minister said Wednesday building two new settlements near Istanbul will help provide safer housing for the city residents living in earthquake danger zones.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about the already existing city, its buildings? Earthquakes are a reality Istanbul faces day-to-day. A solution must be found, but through doable and implemented projects,\u201d Kahraman said. Trying to address the earthquake problem by building new settlements will only cover the existing problem, and not solve it, he added.<\/p>\n

Istanbul lies near the North Anatolian fault line, one of the most active seismic zones in the world. An earthquake in 1999 killed 17,000 people in \u0130zmit, a city about 60 miles to the east across the Marmara Sea. Experts foresee a large-scale earthquake will hit Istanbul in the coming three decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am against transferring the city to far away locations,\u201d Ali \u00c7etin \u00d6nder, the chairman of TADEM, a real estate evaluation and consultancy firm, told the Daily News in a phone interview Wednesday. There are still many areas with illegal and unplanned housing and shanty houses within Istanbul, said \u00d6nder, who added authorities had to first address such zones, before trying to expand the city. \u201cOtherwise, costs of urban planning will increase further.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prime minister said the new settlements would also make traffic lighter within Istanbul. While \u00d6nder said this could be partly the case, as the new settlement would attract immigrants, thus preventing the city center becoming more crowded, Kahraman said, \u201cNothing can be said at this point. It is still unclear what sort of infrastructure will come with the two new districts.\u201d<\/p>\n

A radical increase of Istanbul\u2019s population is another concern Kahraman stressed, saying that should the \u201ctwo new cities project\u201d be approved, Istanbul\u2019s population would indisputably exceed 20 million by 2023. \u201cThere will be more migration to the city. Low income people will want a share of the new rent created by the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plans for two new settlements, however, have been very good news for the real estate sector agents. \u201cThis will be an important real estate movement. The plans will keep the real estate sector dynamic for the next decade,\u201d Nezametin A\u015fa, the second chairman of Istanbul\u2019s Real Estate Commissioners Chamber, told the Daily News on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

via \u2018Two new cities\u2019 a catastrophe for Istanbul, experts say – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISTANBUL \u2013 H\u00fcrriyet Daily News The prime minister said Wednesday building two new settlements near Istanbul will help provide safer housing for the city residents living in earthquake danger zones. The prime minister said Wednesday building two new settlements near Istanbul will help provide safer housing for the city residents living in earthquake danger zones. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":70326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[102,5504],"class_list":["post-33627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-istanbul","tag-quake-proof-cities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}