Gecekondu settlements and housing policies have always been controversial issues in urbanisation history of Turkey. The housing policies and the approaches to gecekondu settlements have changed in distinct periods depending on sociospatial and economic circumstances. The small scale house builders played a crucial role in housing sector for regenerating the gecekondu settlements, until Housing Development Administration took the lead in large scale urban transformation projetcs in the begining of 2000s. In

Along with the most important developments of the 20th century, capitalism, industrial revolution and modernization, the aims of establishing a national identity of the newly established states in the imperial geographies came to the fore as an important agenda. In this book, which focuses on researching and discussing the role of ideologies in the production of space during the construction of national identity, Kızılay and Taksim Republic Squares have been chosen as exemplary study areas because they are