  Citation: Enlil, Z.; Dinçer, ˙ I. Political Dilemmas in the Making of a Sustainable City-Region: The Case of Istanbul. Sustainability 2022, 14, 3299. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063299 Academic Editor: W.G.M. (Willem) Salet Received: 1 January 2022 Accepted: 28 February 2022 Published: 11 March 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article Political Dilemmas in the Making of a Sustainable City-Region: The Case of Istanbul Zeynep Enlil * and ˙ Iclal Dinçer Department of City and Regional Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Yıldız Technical University, Barbaros Boulevard, Besiktas, Istanbul 34349, Turkey; diclal@yildiz.edu.tr * Correspondence: enlil@yildiz.edu.tr; Tel.: +90-532-384-9336 Abstract: This article aims to explore the political dilemmas of sustainable metropolitan development marked by intense tensions between ecology and economy within the context of neoliberal urban policies over the Case of Istanbul, Turkey. It investigates the re-scaling and centralization of the state in directing the investment capital and focuses on the ways in which it reregulates and loosens the institutions to create exceptionalities in order to realize mega projects. It examines Canal Istanbul and the “New City” or the Yeni¸ sehir Project, the so-called “crazy project” imposed upon the city by the central government, which presents a crucial case demonstrating the processes of creating exceptionalities and the erosion of public norms. Empirically, drawing from the Turkish experience through an in-depth analysis of policy documents, plans and reports prepared by a variety of agents, the article demonstrates and discusses different modalities of creating exceptions to capitalize on the lucrative real estate markets through mega projects in an increasingly authoritarian neoliberal context, its ramifications on the existing norms and the oppositions it raised. The article concludes with a discussion on how the new political climate that moved away from subsidiarity, transparency and democratic participation, and became increasingly centralized, created an impasse for planning and that neither the ecology nor the economy could be protected and enhanced. Although economic development discourse is used to legitimize these mega projects, it is obvious that they lead to an ecocide. Keywords: neoliberal urbanism; mega projects; institutional change; public norms; centralization; authoritarianism; ecocide; Canal Istanbul and Yeni¸ sehir Project 1. Introduction Planning in complex metropolitan systems is always a contested terrain overridden by many paradoxes exacerbated by the neoliberal policies of the last four decades. Although neoliberal urbanism has variegated forms, “involving geographically uneven and path- dependent processes” [1] (p. 327), [2], it engenders a process in which relations between the state and the economy are reconstituted and state institutions become the prime agents in promoting market-based regulatory arrangements [2] (p. 102). Without doubt, neoliberal policies have spatial ramifications [3] and profound impacts on metropolitan development leading to the emergence of powerful actors with divergent stakes on urban land, formation of various growth coalitions [4], shifting power configurations, growing political pressures and authoritarian state interventions [5–7] Sustainable development of metropolitan cities is thus jeopardized by new urban policies that thrive on the urbanization of capital through the exploitation of highly speculative urban land markets and the commodification of urban space through privatization and deregulation [8]. Instrumental in this neoliberal urbanization have been mega projects, large-scale infrastructure projects and urban regen- eration schemes, building high-rise offices and creating new centers. All of these projects were targeted at generating urban rent and profitable economic activities. They were part and parcel of place marketing strategies geared toward attracting loose capital in search of economic growth and competitiveness [9]. Sustainability 2022, 14, 3299. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063299 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability