Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan revealed his master plan for Ankara on Wednesday, vowing to create a second city in the Turkish capital with a population of 500,000.
The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP will give Ankara a face-lift if brought back to power in the June elections, the prime minister said, promising the city a new stadium, zoo and botanic park, while also vowing to turn the capital into a center for the defense industry as well as religious, health and thermal tourism.
“When Ankara was declared the capital, it had a population of 40,000. The population has now reached 5 million. However, the city was not planned for the increase in population, and Ankara [thus] did not urbanize properly,” Erdoğan said.
While some areas of the city will be renovated under the AKP plan, “SouthCity” will be a completely new settlement, the prime minister said, declining to reveal its location. “It will be designed not only as a housing suburb, but as a living area,” Erdoğan said.
Promised makeovers for other parts of the city include improving living standards in Mamak and beautifying Kızılay.
The need for a new city project that would create new population zones should be questioned, said Orhan Sarıaltun, the Ankara chief of the Turkish Union of Engineers’ and Architects’ Chambers, or TMMOB’s, City Planning Department.
“I think there is a ‘calculation error’ in the new city project. I don’t think there is a need to create new residential and population areas. There are already high-population zones within the existing texture of the city and similar projects have been taken to court for annulment that would cause residential areas to boom,” Sarıaltun told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
“Projects are being produced to increase the capital’s population from around 4 million to 10 million within the next few years. But how would problems such as unemployment or transportation be handled if such a project is to be initiated?” he asked.
According to Sarıaltun, the “SouthCity” project would likely be carried out in the far south of Ankara’s Gölbaşı district, and would be disconnected from the city center if it is it not accompanied by a subway or other proper transportation infrastructure.
Defense industry center
The prime minister also vowed that Ankara would become a capital of the Turkish defense industry. A majority of the Turkish Armed Forces, or TSK’s, needs are met in Turkey, with 80 percent of the industry already located in Ankara. In addition to helicopters, tanks, jets, rockets and ships, Ankara has also produced Turkey’s first satellite, Erdoğan noted, adding that a $100 million space center would also be set up in the capital.
Ankara is already a center of the defense industry as it is home to top defense manufacturers such as Turkish Aerospace Industries, or TAI, and ASELSAN, retired Maj. Gen. Armağan Kuloğlu told the Daily News.
“The project is not a new one. TAI, the country’s second-largest defense company, Aselsan, a military electronics firm, and military electronics company Havelsan are all based in Ankara. The Defense Ministry Undersecretary, which carries out coordination on defense issue, is likewise based in Ankara,” Kuloğlu said.
“Some additional departments could be built. But there is a difference in rhetoric between saying they will expand the capacity of Ankara, which is already a defense-industry center, with further investments and saying they would convert the city into a center for the defense industry,” the retired officer added.
Other projects
Vowing to open two city hospitals with a 7,000-bed capacity in Keçiören and Bilkent, Erdoğan also declared that the AKP “wants Ankara to be the capital of health, too.”
The social projects announced by the prime minister include opening the largest zoo in the Middle East, setting up a religious museum in the city center, establishing Turkey’s first botanical park, constructing a 1.8-million-square-foot fairgrounds and building a 40,000-seat capacity stadium in line with UEFA standards.
Ankara will also receive a new courthouse, the prime minister said.
Transportation will also be improved, with Ankara becoming the center of the country’s express train lines and with a tunnel near Keçiören connecting to the Istanbul, Eskişehir and Konya highways to ease city traffic, Erdoğan said. Another attempt to ease traffic will be a rail system constructed between Esenboğa airport and the city center, he added.
