INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SEGREGATION AND HOUSING POLICIES IN ISTANBUL Cagin Tanriverdi* Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Taskisla, Taksim, 34 437, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: tanriverdicagin@gmail.com Assist. Prof. Dr. Julide Alp Maltepe University, Marmara Education Village, 34857, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: jkayalaralp@gmail.com Prof. Dr. Tulin Gorgulu Maltepe University, Marmara Education Village, 34857, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: tulingorgulu@gmail.com Abstract Indubitably, there has been a perpetual circulation between Istanbul city center and its peripheries in parallel with incessant need for housing, novel rituals, expectations, lifestyles and new housing policies. This competition exists even today where newer projects make the formers out-of-date. Besides, as a result of uneven distribution of income and unequal living standards, segregation among housing areas, typologies and dwellers became a consequential fact of urban life. This study hypothesizes that housing policies may remain insufficient in diminishing segregation or even they were not occupied with this problem, and there is only a physical or spatial conjunction, instead of social integration among newly-built housing areas and former housing units. As for methodology, this paper deems the effects of housing policies on physical environment, investigates the various meanings and concepts of segregation beside analysis of the housing policies of post-1980 years based on three samples in Istanbul. Keywords: Housing policy, Segregation, Physical conjunction, Social integration, Istanbul Introduction Researchers are recently admitting the increasingly obvious fact that the concept of segregation is a matter of paramount importance among many aspects of urban life. However, there is room for its improvement since it is a multi-dimensional phenomenon and should be analyzed in detail. Particularly, this matter was triggered by propagation of the philosophy of globalization, industrialization and capitalism in the world and Turkey, as a developing country experienced this trend clearly. In the globalized world where the distance between income levels gradually rises, it is not surprising that segregation would be boomed. Spatial reflections of this matter paved the way for a number of changes in formation or development of cities. The dramatic changes in Turkish economy during last decades have resulted in creation of one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing urban systems in the world. Istanbul as a megacity and economic center of the country is burdened with these alterations. Formerly, the city with heterogeneous and relatively balanced lifestyles in the same places turned out to be polarized and more homogeneous, and this basically initiated the trend of segregation. In the process of industrialization, with regard to some reasons such as huge labor requirement and more job chances in big cities, lack of job and educational opportunities and inadequate living standards in rural areas, people migrated from the four corners of the country to Istanbul and some other bigger cities. Therefore, a new urban image has been arisen in these cities, since people with various social, educational, cultural and economic backgrounds have gathered together.