Sustainability Dilemma of Urban Change Policies

Authors : Bülent Güneş

Pages : 2214-2236

Doi:10.35674/kent.1602547

View : 339 | Download : 193

Publication Date : 2025-07-15

Article Type : Review Paper

Abstract :Following the 1960s and 70s, technological and digital developments in urban areas, in conjunction with the renewed models of capitalism across the globe, have given rise to novel living spaces at the level of development of countries. While global capitalism and capital have shaped global urban areas with \\\'post-fordism\\\' and neoliberal policies as a means of resolving periodic crises, it has concurrently led to the rapid expansion of \\\'environmental fordism\\\' directed towards the Global South. The emergence of \\\'sustainable growth\\\' policies, rooted in the concepts of \\\'limits of growth\\\' and \\\'ecology\\\' prevalent during the 1970s and 1980s, at both national and international levels, engendered a favourable perception of this process, thereby legitimising it. Conversely, the neoliberalism-driven \\\'world city\\\' policies, underpinned by a marketist and competition-based model of capitalism, have been instrumentalised in the urban sphere to align disciplines such as architecture and planning with the interests of capital accumulation. This has occurred within the context of a democratic process that has become increasingly rigid. While capital groups were able to repair themselves during the crisis process in the 1970s, the 2008 global financial crisis of neoliberalism led to the emergence of new destruction and chronic crises. This literature-based study utilises observations to analyse the political practices in the economic, administrative and spatial domains that have assumed prominence in the historical process since the emergence of industrial cities, and their progression to the present day. In this study, the association of neoliberal capitalism with sustainability is called into question. This is important because neoliberal capitalism became the environment-oriented political axis in the 1970s and after. The study uses a conceptual framework, and categorical approaches created within the functioning of the system to do this. The study evaluated developments related to central and local policies and neoliberal practices in the urban area of Istanbul, especially after the 1980s, in the context of the global agenda. The study demonstrates that the utilisation of categorical interpretations of sustainability, which has emerged as the indispensable political axis of neoliberal capitalism, serves to perpetuate the invisibility of the system rather than address its underlying issues. The establishment of a holistic conceptual framework for sustainability, which has emerged as a pivotal instrument in the realm of instrumentalised urban policies, has given rise to a deadlock within the theoretical framework concerning sustainability. At this juncture, the theoretical development of universal, multidisciplinary macro-political policies grounded in larger majorities emerge the most pressing issue in the process. The present study aims to contribute to the theoretical framework of sustainability, which has become the main political tool of capitalism in the case of the system\\\'s continuity projection.
Keywords : Değişim, Politika, Yönetim, Sürdürülebilirlik, Kent

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