Zirve Eki - ISTANBUL REstate

44 GYODER
Gayrimenkul Zirvesi 10
to note that again this was not a public project initially, but
a private project - built by railroad companies who often
own land in outlie underdeveloped parts of the city and
were interested in the transportation system as much as a
real estate enterprise, as a transportation enterprise. And
it wasn't until the 1930s, with the depression that the city's
subways were taken over by the government. Continuing
with that meeting between public and private sector, not
only were designs for individual buildings proposed and
notions of city design expanding across the city was proposed
and new subways were proposed, but also the regulation
of land use. When one comes to Istanbul, I mean there is
a very kind of thrilling, dynamic crowded streets, in the
streets next to residential areas. People living in the same
places where there are sometimes highly polluting industries.
In New York, by 1916, it was the private sector, property
owners and developers, who initiated the famous New York
City's Zoning Codes which would help to found the city up
to the present day. Why were they concerned about the
regulation zoning? Because these property owners; if there
was no regulation, and one owned a new house or new
apartment building or a hotel, a factory could be located
right across the street. And those kinds of adjacencies were
occurring with ever great rapidity in the city. And city
property owners and real estate people felt threatened by
this mixture of uses that also congested the streets, also
darkened the streets and depressed their property values.
So, from agitation on the private sector side, the public side
responded with the 1916 Zoning Codes which through the
1950s shaped the iconic Manhattan skyline. So that if one
owned a piece of property and an enormous new building
were going up across the street, one had some assurance
that light and air because of the setbacks would penetrate
the street and not depress the property value of one's
property or if one lived in a residential building or owned
a hotel, the land use patterns promoted by the City Zoning
Ordinance , what assured that a factory would not be built
across the street from your property.
15 Haziran 2010
As New York grew and people's ambitions grew more
ambitious, again axis between the public and private sectors
developed to look at not just the building or the city or land
use for the city, but the entire region. By the 1920s the
Regional Plan Association was developed, again a combination
of public and private partners with heavy emphasis on the
private side that sought to rationalize on the development
of the entire region, make those connections across states,
distribute populations and create a range of secondary cities
around the major city of New York and create efficient
transportation, both surface and water and underground, to
tie the several parts of the emerging metropolis together.
And ultimately giving rise to the familiar modern city that
we have today.
Onur Akansel: Ok. As I was listening to you, I have heard
three lessons here that Istanbul actually should be thinking
about. One of them was transformation of New York was a
partnership between public and private sectors and, well,
wasn't just partnership but business was a force behind the
reform.
Roy Strickland: Real estate community was an enormous
force behind this reform.
Onur Akansel: Actually resulted in profit, right?
Roy Strickland: Yes, these buildings are highly profitable
and their investments were protected.
Onur Akansel: And, actually, you have identified several
crises, back then in New York City and basically this
relationship between public and private partnership turned
the crisis into new opportunities.
Roy Strickland: Yes.
Onur Akansel: Well, this was about New York. Now, let's
go to country scale and let's talk about US, back then.
Roy Strickland: Well, as New York was confronting crisis in
1900, although we may look at United States as a kind of
maturely built-out country now, with its web of highways
and suburbs and cities, it was in the 1930s, a pretty inefficient
and unevenly developed country and reminds me of the
situation in Turkey today. Industry and populations, as the
country was going from a shift from agrarian to an industrial
economy, was concentrated at certain points in the country
at the expense of other points. So you would see New York
developed, Chicago, Detroit, certain mid-western cities
become industrial power houses, as people left the south
and left the south-east to move to these cities and pursue
the economic opportunity, leaving behind isolated and poor
towns and the whole states. And the kind of condition that
you see here with this little road that makes me think of the
province of Rees somewhat was prevalent in the United
States. The country was shifting as you are shifting from an
agrarian to an industrial economy and people were moving
to cities as a consequence, as industry would often create
these highly polluting conditions in many parts of the country.
As industry was modernizing, there were new forms of
production occurring in the country, all means of
transportation, like the railroad and the water networks,