The Relationship of Urban Transformation with Neighborhood Attachment in Istanbul: Types of Intervention and Older People

Mass urban interventions have been highlighted to have negative effects on neighborhood attachment in old age. However, this situation has been revealed mostly in studies focusing on the Anglo-American context while overlapping the literature on displacement literature and being supported by the literature on gentrification. Therefore, extending related studies to non-Western contexts will enrich the literature. As an example, Istanbul is the city in Türkiye with the highest percentage of an older population and has been undergoing a comprehensive demolition and resettlement process, particularly state-led interventions targeting poorer slums and inner-city neighborhoods. This study uses quantitative methods to investigate the relationship between the type of intervention (state-led, market-led, or mixed model) and older people’s neighborhood attachment in Istanbul. According to the analysis, contrary to expectations, neighborhood attachment has not changed in the direction of decreasing in state-led urban regeneration practices. Although state-led urban regeneration interventions occasionally result in displacement, some positive changes have been reported in terms of housing comfort, safety, and neighborhood prestige, thus mitigating the expected negative effects on neighborhood attachment, which is an outcome that has received little attention in the literature.