Istanbul: Post-Cultural World City?

"Far below, Istanbul was languishing through an ordinary summer day, reclined across two continents and heedless of the planes buzzing about in her airspace." - Buket Uzuner

The European Union's pick for City of Culture 2010 is not actually in the EU.  Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, around 20th in the world by metropolitan population, 5th by population of city proper, not only straddles the line between Europe and Asia, but also between progressive omnipolitanism and nostalgic rodomontade, or 'boastful self-investment'.  Istanbul is well-established as an historical powerhouse - once capital of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires.  It is positioned along ancient global trade routes, as a past and current (but future??) industrial, business, and transportation center.  The city ranks among the top ten most-visited cities in the world, a position only to improve from with the impending title of European City of Culture.

There is no question of the city's awareness of it's cultural significance to world heritage.  And there is plenty of evidence that Istanbul is progessing towards a metropolitan makeover, as can be seen in the extensive urban plan for development, the extension of the metrorail system and several special urban projects to be realized throughout the city's expanding territory.  But there seems to be a missed opportunity to regain international stature, beyond cultural means.

For a long time, global attention has been oriented toward the West, long-associated with modernization; but the industrial and technological developments rising from the East have shifted this focus in recent decades.  Whether by forces of globalization, or widespread individual acquisitions of resources, knowledge and information, nations across the globe have achieved a multidirectional global network of Modern.  An ecumenopolis, or continuous system of global relationships.  World as city.

All this presents the necessity that Istanbul rise to it's potential as global omnipolis, implied by its relative and geographic position in the world.  A development of Istanbul not only as a more self-sustained city, but also as an international center.  The growing population, speculated to reach 20-25 million by 2030, does not include the millions of tourists and asylum seekers temporarily inhabiting the city.  What is lacking is the proper infrastructure to accommodate such numbers, and the agencies to assist the thousands of migrants in flux.  As Turkey does not give refugee status to asylum seekers, they are often trapped at the gateway to the EU without the ability to work, to educate their children, nor to participate in the city's growing economy.

The current master plan for future development of Istanbul proposes the establishment of sub-centers radiating out from the historical and existing business centers, to the east and to the west.  Already a 'mosaic' of commercial, industrial, retail, residential, and natural districts, a strategic transit infrastructure must be installed to connect and infuse mobility into the city.  Not only an intercity, intercontinental mobility, but a international mobility, linked to the global network of movement.

Istanbul, layered cake of transit

Poised at the intersection of Asia and Europe, the west and the east, Istanbul is an exceptionally global city.  Whereas Hong Kong and Dubai are commercial hubs populated by ex-patriots that perpetuate their modernization and westernization (assimilation?), Istanbul is at its core multinational.  Its inherent population is one of several nationalities and geographical origins.

At the gate for my departure from Dubai International to Istanbul, I could already sense this distinction.  The people waiting with me represented numerous nationalities, a pluralism which fostered a sense of commonality among us.

The city itself is a fusion of old and new.  Development is rapidly expanding a changing the city, but it is filtered through the historical fabric.  The sound of construction wakes me up each morning in an apartment in Galatasaray, and upon stepping out onto the 3rd floor balcony, I can hear this sound echoing throughout the city as an acoustical signifier of progress.  Other sounds that echo through Istanbul: daily calls to prayer sounding from countless mosques, the horns of ships passing through the Bosphorus, and the occasional thunderstorm which arrives with booming thunder and giant tree-branch lightning bolts.

At the juncture of old and new, local and global, east and west, Istanbul is already a terminal city: a bridge city of the past and future.  Standing at the foot of the bridge connecting the European side to the Asian side, you become presently aware of the massive scale of this connection.  Suspended far above you is a transit hub between continents, that is both daily threshold and critical crossover.  Underfoot, under the Bosphorus, a tunnel project for the expanding metro system is underway to facilitate a public link.  This will create a layered cake of traffic passing through a single point: airplane, automobile, ship, and train all simultaneously connecting east and west.