Cities

Ankara was still a small, insignificant town when it was declared the capital of Turkey in 1923.¹ However, within a couple of decades it had grown to become the second largest city in Turkey after Istanbul.² Referring to the building process that had allowed Ankara to experience such growth, writer and journalist Falih Rıfkı Atay, a close acquaintance of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the honorary chairman of the Ankara Master Planning Commission, said: “The Ottomans built monuments, the Turks are the builders of cities.”³ It seems Atay was referring here in a derogatory way to the Ottoman obsession with displaying its political power and imperial might through the numerous monuments that the Ottoman state built in its capital, Istanbul. The remark implies that the Ottoman state had wasted its wealth by spending it on a mere show of imperial power, whereas the new Turkish state, founded by Mustafa Kemal, had diverted its scarce resources to a much worthier cause; that of building modern, thriving cities, thereby expressing a genuine concern for its citizens.