Tracking the Past: Examining the Remains of the Neighborhood of Nişantaşi Teneke In the Context of Socio-Spatial Segregation

Nişantaşı Teneke Mahallesi: Sosyo-Mekânsal Ayrışma Bağlamında İncelemek

Abstract

With the establishment of the neoliberal order, the balance between the extremes of the existing unequal distribution has gradually opened up, and the fact that the universal welfare plane has lost its importance has increased polarization. The social and cultural polarization brought about by economic inequality causes the upper and middle classes to isolate themselves in space, while the lower classes, who lack the right to choose, become ghettos. This separation is not only a result of the neoliberal order but also becomes an area where the neoliberal order makes it more evident and sharpens and where the order creates itself repeatedly. In this context, social inequalities are also embodied and reproduced in the differentiation in space. This environment of inequality brings about exclusion, marginalization, and marginalization for the urban poor. For the urban poor, this situation also brings about detachment from urban life, isolation within oneself, or “socio-spatial seclusion.” In this sense, the study addresses the conditions of reproducing and overcoming the connection between socio-spatial segregation and the relationships established with the environment in squatter settlements based on socio-spatial seclusion. A comparative study examined the inward-looking and outward-looking conditions of communities living in similar physical conditions.
The research examined two areas containing the last squatter settlements, formerly known as Nişantaşı Teneke Neighborhood, which has now turned into a middle-class settlement. A comparative analysis was made on Melek Street and Barakalar Street, two slum settlements next to Nişantaşı, one of Istanbul’s most essential attraction centres. The reason why these two streets were chosen as the study area is that although they have informal housing types, the relationship their residents have with their environment is different from each other. Preliminary research has shown that the slum dwellers on Melek Street have a close relationship with the residents of the apartment buildings around them. In contrast, the residents of Barakalar Street do not have any communication with the apartment buildings around them. In this sense, the study’s primary research question is, “What are the reasons for the different relationships that these two settlements, which share the same history and still live in informal residences with similar physical conditions, have with their environment?”
One of the aims of the study is to place the reasons behind the different transformations of two slum settlements, which have similar structures in terms of physical conditions and historical background, and the separation of their current socio-spatial structures, into a concrete context through the concepts of “socio-spatial segregation” and “seclusion”. In this sense, socio-spatial segregation has been discussed with its changing and transforming structure in its historical context, and what Nişantaşı Teneke Neighborhood has conveyed from its past to the present in the context of socio-spatial segregation has been traced. This historical tracing has been attempted to be read through old Istanbul maps under the guidance of Yılgür’s (2012) book Nişantaşı Teneke Mahallesi: Teneke Mahalle Yoksulluğundan Orta Sınıf Yerleşimine (Nisantasi Shantytown: From Marginal Poverty to Middleclass Settlement). In this respect, the study deals with the spatiality of Nişantaşı Teneke Neighborhood, a micro example of the transformation of the socio-spatial structure in Turkey and Istanbul on a macro scale, within its historical continuity until today.
In this context, the two slum settlements are discussedin terms of their commonalities and differences, historical background, and socio-spatial structure, constituting the concretization components. In the study, a comparison was made between two urban poor settlements that, although having the same history, had different relationships with their surroundings. This comparison has been tried to be read through two discourses of Wacquant (2008):
1. Separating post-Fordist poverty (advanced marginality), from which the social welfare state withdraws, from Fordist poverty and distinguishing it from 19th-century marginality (Wacquant, 2008, p.6-7)

2. The neoliberal capitalism process after industrial consolidation ensures unification in the upper segments while causing social fragmentation in the lower segments (Wacquant, 2008, p.6-7).
For this purpose, it is essential first to understand the evolution of urban poverty from past to present in the historical context of Nişantaşı Teneke Neighborhood. Secondly, the field research was discussed through urban poverty and social fragmentation concepts. With the research, living conditions and their relationships with their environment were examined, specifically in Melek Street (Meşrutiyet Neighborhood) and Barakalar Street (Teşvikiye Neighborhood), where the slum settlements are located in the Şişli district of Istanbul. In this context, social and spatial segregation was taken with the relationship between the concepts of “slum (teneke mahallesi)”, “squatter (gecekondu)” and “socio-spatial seclusion” (Wacquant, 2010; Akgün-Gültekin, 2019), and examples were examined.