Urban Imagi'nation' and the Global Urban Public

This book maps the perceptions of urban professionals within the Turkish public of how significant urban changes have affected their day-to-day lives within the public sphere. Over recent decades, Turkey has witnessed a series of internal and constitutional changes in tandem with substantial cultural, social, and foreign policy changes. Through migration, economic liberalisation, globalisation, increased regional activism, internal power shifts, and widespread social movements, the public sphere, particularly in the epicentre - Istanbul, has witnessed vast change. With the presence of multiple groups and identities sharing the public sphere, urban spaces have expanded and morphed to accommodate a number of worldviews - thereby challenging societal public and private norms, and deepening societal separation. By offering an analysis of a group of Istanbulites' perceptions, stories, and experiences of changing urban public spaces, this book explores how the public reimagine their city and their place in the region and the globe.