Smart Urbanization and Youth Policies in Turkey

Executive Summary

The majority of the world's population now lives in cities. The increasing population and density in urban areas raises important questions about how the cities of the future will be designed and managed, and how happy, healthy and productive urban citizens will thrive in these metropolitan areas. In this sense, one of the strategies that local governments, businesses, universities, non-governmental organizations and citizens have developed together is the Smart City applications and policies. The smart city framework equips urban areas and residents with advanced information and communication technologies, provides the necessary physical and technological infrastructure, protects the environment and natural resources by using data collected from urban mobility and activities, and aims to increase the quality and satisfaction of urban life and the possibility of sustainable development.

We have recently completed a TÜBİTAK-supported research project on smart city discourses, policies and applications in six cities (Adana, Antalya, Bursa, Eskişehir, Kayseri and Konya) and the three major metropolitan areas (Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir). These cities have different socio-cultural and political positions and symbolic relations in the governmental structure of Turkey. In addition to documenting the attempts to make these cities smart(er), this research has focused on youth and their relationship to urban life through the possibilities of smart city strategies.

We argue that the transformation to a smart city should be planned simultaneously and openly with regard to the capacities of different actors and institutions in a democratic and participatory way. Smart Cities will only be possible and feasible if environmental, economic and social sustainability goals are integrated in a creative and collaborative way, with the intention of improving the quality of life of city dwellers.

The municipalities we studied prioritize documenting and using data from their citizens (i.e. complaints and requests). Youth are considered to be highly capable of benefiting from smart city transformation, as they have higher and more complex digital technology skills than previous generations. This assumption has been proven wrong in many cases and we would like to emphasize that young people are by no means a homogeneous group. Therefore, we suggest that local authorities should look for ways to involve young people as active participants in the smart city transformation with their own characteristics and identities, rather than treating them as passive recipients of policies that disregard their differences. Local governments are expressing a desire to retain university educated youth in their cities for the future, and smart city applications could be an effective tool to do so, in addition to raising existing socio-cultural standards towards a more cosmopolitan and inclusive urban environment.

We organized a workshop to discuss the results of our research. In the workshop, municipal experts and academics highlighted the importance of a critical stance towards smart city applications in terms of their neoliberal emphasis on technicality, capital-driven development and data security. Another emphasis was on the concept of participation in the design and implementation of smart city policies and applications. Accordingly, the active involvement of different social groups, especially urban youth, in the constitution of an idealized smart city environment is crucial.