From Modernization to Metropolitanization

This chapter presents a historical account of Istanbul’s metropolitanization with an emphasis on urbanization and the emergence of the modern city. The reorganization of the urban landscape for capitalist accumulation gave rise to the modern city, characterized by a conceptual paradigm. A Lefebvrian critique addresses the dominance of the conceived space and its effect on the lived space, which is particularly relevant to the modernizing urban paradigm. Istanbul serves as a case example of this process, with its transformation beginning in the Ottoman era, slightly losing its pace during the early Republican era, but gradually utilizing the city, including its socio-spatial restructuring. The rapid transformation of Istanbul can be attributed to the relatively continuous metropolitanization process that started in the 1980s, leading to a city with 16 million inhabitants today. Therefore, the neoliberal shift of governmentality is reflected in the growing building stock realized with urban transformation projects, the complex structure of differences experienced by inhabitants in various ways, and, eventually, the introduction of its famous bus rapid transit, the metrobus, to meet growing demands of transportation to maximize time–speed–distance efficiency.