Understanding Residents’ Decision-Making in Urban Regeneration: A Case Study of Kale Neighborhood in Çorum, Turkey

Sammanfattning: This study examines the decision-making processes of residents in Turkey’s urban regeneration projects employing a single case study, namely, Çorum’s Kale neighbourhood. Çorum is a city with 250,000 inhabitants located in Black Sea Region. The aim is to uncover the factors influencing residents’ acceptance or rejection of urban regeneration and the role of the Turkish government in shaping their decisions. The thesis utilizes a Gramscian theoretical framework and mainly focuses on the fluid relationship between consent and coercion (Fusaro et al., 2017). Methods used in this research include reviewing relevant project documents and newspapers, various types of interviews including semi-structured, go-along and expert interviews, field observations, and photographic documentation of the neighbourhood, along with Tillmann-Healy’s (2003) “Friendship as method” approach capitalizing on the trust between neighbours and the researcher’s grandmother who resides in the investigated urban regeneration site. The literature reveals that the main factors shaping residents’ decisions both globally and in Turkey are the extent of resident participation in these initiatives, the presence of neoliberal authoritarian governance, residents’ socioeconomic positioning, cultural identity, tenure status, informal land ownership and perception of benefits like expanded infrastructure along with enhanced living standards, as well as their fears of forced eviction and displacement. On top of these factors, in Turkey, residents’ decisions are also shaped by fear of expropriation, religious and ethnic disparities, varying laws with different powers and the combination of neoliberal authoritarian governance with Islam. The empirical findings of this thesis suggest that the central issues causing Kale neighbourhood’s residents to reject urban regeneration are the absence of economic advantages provided by the government, which involves undervaluing their existing properties, reselling newly constructed relatively smaller units with higher prices and indebting them with substantial mortgages for extended periods. All in all, this thesis finds that residents’ decision-making process is multifaceted, involving a complex interplay of diverse factors that often affect them concurrently, underscoring the necessity for a holistic examination of their motivations. The thesis contributes to the existing literature by presenting a nuanced analysis of decision-making regarding urban regeneration in a highly polarized and contentious context. Furthermore, it adds to existing studies by presenting research on understudied, peripheral geography in Turkey, offering valuable insights into urban regeneration processes outside of the urban centers.