Why are ppl allowed to build in Istanbul to this date?
Istanbul is located in an area that is more prone to more devastating earthquakes that may level around 25% of the Turkish population. Why are ppl building in Istanbul and not evacuating it to a more safe land?
Even in the towns of a relatively less densely populated city like Kahramanmaras we cant that, how can they done this in Istanbul? People died and now we are moving the district. It will be the same in Istanbul. But more people will die.
Istanbul needs to expand and the population density should be re-settled as much as possible in risky neighborhoods such as Avcılar, Pendik, Tuzla, Kadıköy, Üsküdar, Fatih, Şişli, Küçükçekmece, Bakırköy, Beylikdüzü, Güngören, Maltepe, Zeytinburnu, which were subjected to very serious wild construction in the 80s and have old building stock. There are such neighborhoods, especially on the European side, where there are seas of concrete, consisting of endless adjacent apartment buildings along dozens of streets. The main threat in Istanbul is these contiguous buildings. In the event of a devastating earthquake, hundreds of streets will be inaccessible.
Although the fate of some neighborhoods in Istanbul is so obvious, rents have increased more than 5 times in the last 3 years and apartment prices have increased at least 5 times. Apartment prices are 6-10 million liras in apartment buildings that will almost collapse on their own. However, the zoning problem in these areas is very complicated. The buildings are already 6-7 floors, +10 floors in some districts of Kadıköy and Şişli, and the apartments are +100 square meters. Apartment dwellers cannot even agree among themselves, they do not want the square meters of their houses to decrease, if they have a penthouse, they do not want a middle floor. When they want to be given to the contractor in return for flats, sharing problems cannot be solving due to the zoning status. When the residents want to collect money among themselves and re-built, there are disagreements. Roughly speaking, the measure we have developed to renew our building stock against earthquakes is to increase the population density, and even this system is not fully functioning because of all the problems.
Years go by, years go by, until a new disaster strikes. You cannot empty Istanbul by making it unlivable for low and middle-income people. We have to face reality and everyone has to make sacrifices.