Understanding the Spatial Relationship between Large Investment Decisions and Plan Changes: A Case Study of Istanbul

Investments are articulated in the urban space through various partial planning interventions under the influence of neoliberal economic policies. Partial planning applications have become even more widespread with market-based approaches and privatization policies, adopted especially from the 1990s onward. This article aimed to examine the impact of the spatial relationship between plan changes and large investment decisions pertaining to public and private sectors on a multicentered metropolitan area. This study covered six selected districts demonstrating the ranking of districts (including central, subcentral, and periphery) in the Istanbul metropolitan area, which has a multicentered structure and where the neoliberal pressures in Turkey are most apparent. In the article, the spatial relationship between plan change points (PCPs) and large investment points (LIPs) was analyzed using spatial interpolation, network analyses of proximity between plan changes and investments, and the Pearson correlation coefficient analysis. The findings of this study demonstrated that centrality plays an active role in the spread of investments across space, and in the differentiation of the types of investment, under the influence of multicentered settlements. While it appeared that PCPs and LIPs spread across the entire space in central districts and do not accumulate in common locations, they tend to accumulate in common locations in spatial terms in periphery districts. At the district level, investments triggering the obtained plan changes mostly consisted of malls, mixed-use buildings, hospitals and stadiums in central districts, hospitals, transportation facilities (stations), hotels, municipal facilities, squares in subcentral districts, hospitals, transportation facilities, hotels, gated communities, malls, and high-end residences in periphery districts.