Like many other great port cities, Istanbul has re-vamped its waterfront so as to make it fit for today’s cognitive‐creative economy. Old and dirty manufacturing industries originally located at the Haliç — a small river that splits the European side in two — moved to different parts of the city, making space for a narrow but long, meandering public park with playgrounds for the kids and even a (short) bicycle track. A former cigar factory located at the Southwestern bank has been converted into a university campus; a former power plant seven kilometer inland has undergone a similar transformation. These developments clearly demonstrate that Istanbul has joined the long queue of cities that try to modernize their economies by re-appreciating and revalorizing formerly unattractive spaces.
Elsewhere, along the Bosphorus in the old neighborhood of Karaköy, another costly ($1.7 billion) and prestigious project is nearing completion: Galataport...
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