That all of our dreams are about reconstructing Istanbul is a sign of illness.

The cost of the Northern Marmara Highway, which involves the construction of a third Bosporus Bridge, has been estimated at US$ 5 billion. The auction was held the other day, but no bids were received. I believe this is the first evidence of what we have to expect in economic terms in 2012. I had a reason for saying, “This will be a year to maintain what you have, not to accumulate more.” My purpose is not to write another commentary themed “What will follow the Indian Summer?” I will cut it short. Today, I want to talk about the highway project directly. I tried to stress some points about urbanization in Turkey during some of my previous commentaries. Today, I want to continue by addressing this subject in the context of the Northern Marmara Highway. Here is the question: Is the Northern Marmara Highway a good idea? Building highways is usually a good idea. In the case of the Northern Marmara Highway, however, it is doubtful.

Here comes the first point: One of the reasons why Turkey’s exports to the US are low is the incorrect belief among Turkish people that when you get to New York, you will be able to access all of the US market. It might be enough to get to Istanbul in order to enter the Turkish market, but you cannot access the distribution network of the US solely through New York. The US has more than one center. This is exactly why Atlanta, the ninth largest city of the US, is one-third the size of the most crowded city, New York, while Turkey’s ninth largest city Diyarbakir is only five percent the size of Istanbul. Each of the metropolises in the US is a center individually. The number of metropolises in the US is not limited to states. Each city is a separate center of production and distribution. This is why the new urbanization report of the Washington-based Brookings Institute puts emphasis on the “United Cities of America.” This is the first point to state.

Let me get to the second point and link the discussion to the failed auction for the highway project. Actually, cities have always been individual centers for production and distribution. What makes a settlement a city is the presence of routes that connect the settlement to raw material resources and distribution channels.  Before technological advancement, these routes used to be rivers. It is not a coincidence that continents and states that were interconnected via rivers developed much more rapidly and had larger cities. This is the case with Russia, America and Europe. All trade was enabled by river networks. So, it is for a reason that all of the ancient cities were built on the banks of river or seas.  The better built and more comfortable the roads connecting a city to the regions feeding it, the more prosperous the city would be. In this context, we could associate the regional disparity problem of Turkey with the dearth of roads that interconnect the country. This is the second point to stress.

And finally, the Northern Marmara Highway: I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the auction for the Northern Marmara Highway is a good idea as highways take double-lane roads, which are the symbol of mediocrity in connecting cities, one step further. In Turkey, almost all of the railways were built before the 1950s and highways before the 1990s. As a country which has been producing bulk goods for the last six decades, Turkey has worked to calculate the impact of China on transportation costs, but has not considered developing container and cargo transportation via railways. The recently constructed fast train systems are not suitable for container transportation. No major highway construction project has been launched in the last twenty years, either. From this perspective, the Northern Marmara Highway is a good idea.

However, it is another project that is related only to Istanbul. Turkey’s problem is that Istanbul has grown huge compared to the other cities. Its size increases regional imbalances as it attracts the skill stock of other cities. It has grown huge since it has a good connectivity. The Northern Marmara Highway will only cause Istanbul to grow bigger. The rest of the world, however, aims to create cities that are connected directly to all locations of the planet. From this angle, the failure of the auction might be considered to be a fortunate thing. It is now time to abandon the archaic “We should move everything on earth to the capital city” perception inherited from the Ottoman Empire. We have to move in the same direction as the rest of the world. Each city has to calculate how the domestic investment climate can go beyond that of the neighboring city. All cities, not only capitals, need new roads. It is a sign of illness that all our dreams are about reconstructing Istanbul.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 13.01.2012