Feeding the city: agriculture and urban change in Istanbul from the Late Ottoman to Early Republican Period

This study examines Istanbul's urban agricultural system, which has been almost completely erased from the city's life and memory, and its transformation from a social, economic, and environmental perspec-tives. As a first step, the study focuses on market gardens and exam-ines the role of these agricultural units in supplying the city and their place in the urban metabolism at a time when transportation facilities were limited. After presenting a multidimensional picture of the city's ongoing agricultural system, the dissertation focuses on two periods that were crucial to its transformation: the late Ottoman and early Re-publican periods. The two main themes that link these periods are dis-cussed throughout the dissertation and are expressed through the concepts of the "urban–rural relationship" and the "urban boundary". The study focuses on the spatial impact of population growth and ur-ban expansion in the late Ottoman period and analyses the active and passive roles played by market gardens, vineyards and orchards in land development. The problems caused by the physical expansion of the city during this period also led to efforts to draw a boundary around the city within the framework of modern administrative think-ing. Throughout the study, the issue of urban boundaries is examined in relation to various factors such as food and housing prices, taxes, and a range of actors including the municipality, gardeners, and other food producers. With the early Republican period, the focus of re-search shifts to the new methods, opportunities and policies that be-gan to be adopted in the production, distribution and consumption of fresh food. Although the question of defining the city's boundaries, a problem inherited from the late Ottoman period, persisted during these years, the era was defined by official and public debates over whether Istanbul could be considered an agricultural city. In the early 1930s, the city had the potential to develop both industrially and agri-culturally. However, developments after 1935 paved the way for the elimination of agriculture from urban space and daily life in Istanbul. The study examines the impact on this transformation of factors such as the introduction of modern management projects imposing hygiene and aesthetic standards, increased transport capacity and the expan-sion of scale of vegetable production and supply as a result of policy implementation, and the inability of growers to compete in these in-creasingly difficult conditions. This dissertation draws on three evolv-ing and interrelated literatures: critical urban theory, urban ecology and urban environmental history. It aims to contribute to the above–mentioned areas of research by examining the intertwined dynamics of urban transformation and urban–rural relations from the perspec-tive of Istanbul's history.