- Informal Settlements Upgrading: the Gececondus in Ankara    672 kb by    Malusardi, Federico & Giuseppe, Occhipinti | federico.malusardi@uniroma1.it    Short Outline The phenomenon of informal settlements (gecekondus) namely the illegal occupation of urban land has characterised the urban growth of the Turkish cities since the sixties. An important project in Ankara gives a solution to an illegal settlement through the new Plan of Ankara. Abstract As an effect of the globalisation process, the growth of informal settlements in the larger Turkish cities has become increasingly complex and is a political economic, environmental and social issue. Laws issued to legalise such settlements were generally ineffective. The problem was made worse by land speculation which strengthened the phenomenon of illegal land occupation and the building of gecekondus. In the Cankaya Municipality of Ankara, the Dikmen Valley Project, a project of an illegal settlement upgrading and the creation of a metropolitan park, has become part of the city planning of Greater Ankara. But the consistent illegal settlement in Canker represented a great obstacle to the realisation of the Dikmen Valley Project. The project has benefited from the collaboration of the Mayor of Ankara (as the representative of the Greater Municipality) and of the Managers of the Metropol Imar A.S., one of the biggest building corporation in Turkey, while the Cankaya Municipality directed the Dikmen Valley Project. The project is creating a new residential settlement and its facilities and is also turning the Dikmen Valley into a park which will benefit the entire city. Wile the choice of the actors has sustained the implementation of the project, the problem of gecekondus remain open, because the Cankaya experience can not be applied to the huge illegal settlements which form the great periphery of Ankara. Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2003: Planning in a more globalized World   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper