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An Association Is Founded In Ege Neighbourhood 05/01/2012

Ege Neighbourhood Urban Problems, Culture and Solidarity Association, which is founded to introduce demands of the residents about urban transformation to local authorities, begans its operations in Ege neighbourhood which is one of the important Roma Gypsy settlements of Izmir. The administration of the association ask local authorities to start urban transformation without eviction.

The residents of Ege Neighbourhood in which almost 1000 family live plan to explain their demands related with urban transformation to the municipality. Common expectation of the residents is that the transformation will be done without evicting families from the neighbourhood. Surely they want to live in better housing conditions. But they also want to live in the same neighbourhood. The mukhtar of the neighbourhood Özer Kaleli evaluating the issue made a comment: "The Mayor of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality promised us that they won't evict us from the neighbourhood. We believe him. We ask them not to prepare any projects without considering our wishes. Ten families live in one house here. If you give one new house for each old house, where will the other nine family go? You have to consult us for hindering any kind of problem which could be caused by urban transformation. Otherwise, there will be great problems."

The issue of urban transformation projects without eviction which have been discussed whenever urban transformation is brought to agenda is important for either economic and cultural features. It's almost impossible for citizens, who have lived in a place and subsisted with possibilities they find in the same place for a long time,not to face problems about acculturation and subsistence. Citizens, who have been evicted from their older houses and settled to new houses in an other neighbourhood in the context of urban transformation projects prepared without considering acculturation and subsistence in some metropolitan cities, were obligated to go back to the their older neighbourhoods and they were obligated to live under worse housing conditions.

Source: Egede Sabah