ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses issues related to environmental management and the politics of development around Istanbul’s fresh water reservoirs within the political and institutional context of the 1990s. It reviews the main features of the current environmental legislation and the metropolitan government system in Istanbul. There have been numerous stories in the Turkish media about ‘illegal cities’ that have developed through the activities of the ‘land Mafia’ on public and forest land near Istanbul’s fresh water reservoirs. Istanbul is the largest metropolitan centre in Turkey and accounts for 20 percent of the total urban population. As the leading harbour and major industrial, financial and cultural centre, Istanbul’s population increased rapidly since the 1950s, from less than a million people in 1950 to three million in 1970, to over seven million in 1990. It is estimated that about ten to twelve million people live in the Istanbul metropolitan area.
