An Analysis of Validebağ Grove from the Lens of Urban Political Ecology
An Analysis of Validebağ Grove from the Lens of Urban Political Ecology

Summary/Abstract: This paper adopts the critical lens of UPE, short for Urban Political Ecology, to examine the sociopolitical underpinnings of public green space in the 21st-century neoliberal urban regime, particularly focusing on Istanbul's historic Validebağ Grove. Conducting a historical analysis, this study elucidates how Validebağ's socio-nature has been reshaped over time amidst the evolving political and economic forces, with a particular focus on the aftermath of the 1980’s, since when neoliberal urban policies have been hegemonic in the spatial governance of Istanbul. We show the marginalization of Validebağ’s use-value following the military rule of 1980, the commercialization of its socio-nature through deregulation and re-regulation, and the grove’s instrumentalization for urban capitalist growth through park projects proposed by the local municipality. We demonstrate how the “ideology of nature” and its “technocratic” management are instrumental in employing urban green as a capital accumulation strategy within the 21st neoliberal urban governance.

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