After the 2008 INURA workshop and the 2009 INURA Istanbul conference “Urban Transformation. Capital – State – Civil Society”, Istanbul is calling you again: City, Now!
Historically, Istanbul has been the magnetic pole of urbanity. It earned the simple, almost logo-like name “Poli” – simply “The City”, for centuries Istanbul alone represented the idea and reality of a city in this part of the world. Its unique location has been both a blessing and a curse: Humans tried to but could not abandon it: So they built here a living body of extraordinary complexity and multilayered depth.
In the 34th INURA meeting in June we want to build on our earlier Istanbul meetings, but we also want to expand thematically. Furthermore we want to look at the state of our cities from a regional perspective. In particular, we want to revisit past INURA conferences held in the Balkans.
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Istanbul and the cities in the region stand at critical thresholds. They face converging pressures that demand new forms of solidarity and shared learning. Their inhabitants must skillfully navigate turbulent waters.
Geopolitical volatility and security fragility now reach even the most stable cities among us. The painful transition into a multipolar world is underway, and war is no longer something distant. Our cities no longer merely experience geopolitics – they have become geopolitical. Energy corridors, shifting frontiers, proxy conflicts that are no longer frozen, great-power competition: all of them make local agency vulnerable to external pressures at multiple scales.
Tendencies of illiberalism grow, take over – from neoliberal to populist-authoritarian – under the weight of power politics. Separation of powers, civic space and media independence, are under attack. Brain drain has always been on the agenda: Recently, a political dimension is added. And always, the specter of displacement: whether through gentrification or through the brutal logic of war and crisis. Waves of displaced people – forced by armed conflict, poverty, and despair, challenge both social cohesion and enrich our communities, balancing our declining demographics.
Yet we are aware of our resources: The adaptive intelligence of our populations is experienced in crises. Our multilingual cosmopolitanism, our muscle memory of protest and civic mobilization, our networks of mutual aid survive when institutions fail. We know how to improvise, how to occupy space, how to use humor against power. Our diasporas connect us to the world. Our histories teach us that survival requires creativity.
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Istanbul’s sheer demographic size and density matters: 16 Million people on 1160 sqkm’s built up area (13 750 people per sqkm); is unmatched on the European continent. Its narrative cannot be reduced to one single theme. The city shows us what it means to make impossible choices every day, to find pathways through situations where every option seems blocked.
Consider the planetary dilemma: A city squeezed between the seismic fault line cutting through its south and the fragile ecological zone of northern forests and watersheds. An eternal nightmare to planners.
Consider the metropolitan contradiction: A historical metropolis at its post-industrial center a venue of New Metropolitan Mainstream, while its fringes function as a late-industrial powerhouse. Two cities, two temporalities, one complex governance puzzle.
Consider the demographic tensions: A city built up and reinvented again and again by migration, still that everlasting question about identity remains on the agenda. Loss or change, transformation, new synthesis? The anxiety is real, the stakes are high, and easy answers serve no one.
Consider the housing emergency: The urgent need to renew, retrofit, and transform a fragile, haphazardly built environment against earthquake risks – a process that too often becomes the negation of housing rights for millions of renters and occupier-owners and fuels their organised struggle. Under conditions of missing public policy “Safety vs justice” becomes a fake dilemma.
Consider the governance crisis: Democratically legitimized multi-layered local structures confronting top-down decisions dictated by a “competitive authoritarian” regime that still depends on electoral legitimacy. Every municipal decision becomes a political battlefield – and Istanbul’s voters have so far proven very wise in using their collective electoral power. The popular wisdom states: Whoever governs Istanbul, governs the country.
These are the daily reality for millions who navigate between impossible alternatives, finding room to breathe in spaces that shouldn’t exist, creating solutions no planning manual ever anticipated. The creativity, resourcefulness, and democratic resilience of Istanbul’s citizens keep this city alive.
They are experienced how to read the tricky currents, when to resist and when to adapt. This knowledge is practical, transferable, and worth sharing.
Learning from Istanbul, is learning collectively, sharing experiences – not through official channels or development agencies, but directly, from what works on the ground, and what not, sharing strategies for maintaining civic agency under pressure, building solidarity across our different struggles.
Haydi Şehir ! Хајде, град! Hajde Grad ! Ајде, град!
Hajde Qytet ! Хайде, град! Hai Urbe ! Άντε, πόλη!
City now!
