Istanbul: A Megacity in the Light of Turkey’s Political Transformation
Sep 11 2017 by Gülçin Erdi
This book is the result of more than twenty years of social, economic, and urban observations and investigations by a geographer[i] in Istanbul, a city Jean Baudrillard described as the “capital of the twenty-first century” (p.14). The author aims to disenchant this megacity, to understand it in all its complexity, and to go beyond its romantic and touristic perceptions by providing a reading of the city from below. The objective of the author is clear: to go off the beaten tracks and look to the everyday life of ordinary urban citizens. He also aims to explain the changing socio-economic and cultural morphology of Istanbul vis-à-vis the profound urban transformation that started in the 1980s and accelerated with the Party of Justice and Development’s rule (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi— AKP) during the 2000s.
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