Sukru Punduk says his family has lived in Sulukule, Istanbul's Gypsy quarter, for six centuries and he won't be driven out by laptop-carrying, stroller-pushing yuppies.

The city plans to bulldoze Sulukule to make way for 620 townhouses as part of its effort to spruce up the area by 2010, when Istanbul will be the European Capital of Culture.

Punduk, a tom-tom player whose home is on the demolition list, is leading the fight against the redevelopment project. He says it will destroy a community that's produced some of Turkey's best-loved musicians and belly dancers, and price the city's Gypsies, also known as Roma, out of their historic home.

``I've seen the models they've made for the new housing,'' says Punduk, 38. ``There are little model people carrying laptops or pushing prams, but no women in headscarves, no horse- carriages, no one playing the tom-tom. The Gypsies don't exist.''

On the streets of Sulukule, the scent of lentils from a soup canteen mixes with the aroma of horse dung and hashish. Children, one carrying a one-legged baby doll, play in the rubble of some of the 20 houses that have already been knocked down.

Other homes in the enclave, surrounded by 5th-century Byzantine walls on the European side of Istanbul, were abandoned by owners who accepted compensation from the city. They now house chickens and the horse-drawn carriages used to ferry tourists on sightseeing excursions. Black numbers on the walls mark another 600 slated for demolition early next year.

James Bond

City officials say the project will improve living standards in Sulukule, where 5,000 people now reside. It will bring amenities such as electricity, gas and water, and replace crumbling houses and canvas shacks with modern row houses featuring landscaped gardens and courtyards.

``The people live in very bad conditions,'' said Mustafa Demir, mayor of Istanbul's Fatih district, which includes Sulukule. ``We aim to provide them with a healthy environment.''

A typical 90-square-meter (968-square-foot) house in the new development will cost $93,000, in line with the average price in Istanbul. Once the land is cleared, the Housing Development Administration will solicit bids from private developers.

Residents of Sulukule, the setting for the belly dancing and Gypsy fight scenes in the 1963 James Bond film ``From Russia With Love,'' were left behind by Turkey's economic boom over the past five years. Their average monthly income of $250 is about half the national figure.

Homeowners are being offered cash compensation. Those who can afford to stay in Sulukule will get 15-year loans to cover the additional cost of one of the new homes, Demir said. Tenants in the Gypsy quarter will get loans to buy less expensive apartments about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away on the fringes of Istanbul.

`Don't Want Us'

The redevelopment ``will be good, because the area is a pigsty now,'' says Ozge Yazici, 29, a Web site technician who lives near Sulukule. ``But what is going to happen to the people? It's a colorful area that should be preserved.''

Huseyin Kucukatasayar moved out of the Gypsy quarter in April, after selling his house to a private investor. He says the housing development is an attempt to stamp out the local culture and reflects the historic prejudice against Gypsies worldwide.

``People look down on us; they don't want us,'' says Kucukatasayar, 53, who runs carriage rides for tourists and still keeps his horses in Sulukule. ``Here, I can still have my tea in the café even if I don't have any money in my pocket, because they know me. You can't find that solidarity anywhere else.''

Turkey's Gypsies originated in northwest India, Afghanistan and Iran. Byzantine chronicles refer to a community in Sulukule as early as the 11th century, said Adrian Marsh, a Romani studies researcher at the University of Greenwich in London.

Song and Dance

Turks and tourists once flocked to Sulukule's ``party houses'' for late-night belly dancing and music, before police shut them down in the 1990s. Today, dancers and musicians mostly earn their living by performing at restaurants in tourist districts, or at weddings and circumcision ceremonies.

The Sulukule Romani Culture Solidarity and Development Association, headed by Punduk, delivered a petition against the redevelopment to the Turkish legislature's Human Rights Commission on Nov. 14 in Ankara. There's been no response yet.

Plans to treat lawmakers to traditional Gypsy song and dance were foiled when security guards confiscated their instruments. The protesters improvised, using trays and water bottles from the parliament's canteen as drums, Punduk says.

The project ``will impoverish these people even further,'' says Marsh, whose European Commission-funded study of Turkey's Gypsies will be published in April. ``That must be seen as a great crime, to destroy the living memory of any community.''

Mayor Demir promises the new Sulukule will include a cultural center where Gypsies can play music and pass on their traditions.

``That's great, but who's going to come if you dislocate the entire community?'' Marsh says. ``They'll end up running Tai Chi courses and yoga, because the only people using the cultural center would be middle-class Turkish people.''