Photo: Coal Mine in Çatalağzı, Zonguldak. Own archive, 2014.
There has been a massive wave of
energy and mining investments all over the world linked to the growth of
construction, infrastructure and manufacturing sectors. Worldwide production of
raw materials such copper, iron, aluminium grew by more than 40% in just 10
years from 1995 to 2005 (Arboleda, 2016), accompanied by remarkable and
continuous rise in commodity prices since 2000 and quick recovery after the
2008 financial crisis.
Energy and mining have also been high on the agenda
of Turkey’s politics since 2002. Coal has a significant place in this agenda
for stoking the country’s economy while at the same time decreasing its
dependence on Russian gas (Carrington, 2015). With 38 coal plants in operation
and 80 planned, the scale is jawdropping.
Despite this coal rush, however,
Zonguldak-the coal town of the country which hosts the country’s first coal
power plant opened 70 years ago-has been experiencing a process of deindustrialisation
and urban shrinkage since the late 1980s. And like many other shrinking cities
across the world, Zonguldak has been continuously prone to rapidly changing
circumstances of the global economy.
So, what are the dynamics behind Zonguldak’s deindustrialisation
and shrinkage? And what enables Zonguldak and cities alike to adapt, transform
and thrive in the face of often dramatically changing conditions? These are the
questions which guide my recent research that I undertake as part of an ERA-NET
project entitled “3S RECIPE: Smart Shrinkage Solutions – Fostering Resilient
Cities in Inner Peripheries of Europe”. We work together with urban
practitioners and policy makers to identify a) what works in a shrinking city
context, and b) how the underlying forces of urban shrinkage can be reversed in
order to convert these cities into sustainable, liveable, and economically
resilient urban environments. For further details see:
http://jpi-urbaneurope.eu/project/3s-recipe/
Arboleda, M. (2016) Spaces of extraction,
metropolitan explosions: Planetary urbanisation and the commodity boom in Latin
America, IJURR, 40 (1): 96-112.
Carrington, D. (2015) Is it too late to stop Turkey's coal rush? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/06/is-it-too-late-to-stop-turkeys-coal-rush.
Photo: Coal Mine in Çatalağzı, Zonguldak. Own archive, 2014.
