Urban Modernization in Plural Ottoman Districts: Kadıköy, Istanbul, During the Long Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the transformation of nineteenth-century Kadıköy, Istanbul, from a small agricultural village to one of the bustling commercial and residential hubs of the imperial capital. It examines the post-1855 Fire planning of Kadıköy, which is one of the earliest urban planning experiences in the modern Middle East. I argue that local factors (i.e. neighborhood fires, demographic changes, local agency) shaped Kadıköy’s urban transformations as significantly as the larger imperial (Ottoman modernization) and global (capitalism) dynamics. In addition to contemporary newspapers and the existing scholarly literature on Ottoman urban modernization, the memoirs and maps of Hovhannes Kalfa Stepanian, a nineteenth-century builder and a Kadıköy resident, constitute the core source of this thesis. By examining Stepanian’s documents in light of official and historical sources, this thesis maps the urban modernization of late Ottoman Kadıköy. It also argues that much of the contemporary characteristics of modern-day Kadıköy are rooted in the incremental urban practices of the nineteenth century. The importance of this research is twofold. First, it shows the gap between the imperial regulations concerning urban modernization and the actual practices of urbanism on the ground whereby these regulations were constantly negotiated with local dynamics. Second, it offers an in-depth study of the modernization of a plural Ottoman district, which will provide important clues for understanding the modernization of similarly mixed districts in the rest of Istanbul as well as the other major port cities of the empire such as Thessaloniki, Izmir, and Beirut.