Multicultural Neighborhoods

Urbanisation and multicultural neighborhoods are two concepts recently discussed and associated given the tendency of government to redevelop such neighborhoods. As highly diverse areas, multicultural neighborhoods have to accommodate different cultures, sometimes randomly put together and aggregated almost exclusively by the lower financial income and the need for cheaper accommodation.

A multicultural neighborhood is defined as an area or more areas in an urban space or city, where the majority of residents are from countries different from the one they reside in. Multicultural neighborhoods are partly the results of international migration and at the same time of internal migration and refugees’ flows. Oftentimes, they are areas of cities

At the time when Rome was just a small city, emperors brought in residents of other areas of the Roman Empire. These were placed on one of the seven hills of the city, the Aventino, right outside the walls of the inner city. The populations included in were not necessarily coming from areas outside Europe but were often resident of the wider region that now host the city of Rome, Lazio. Despite the proximity, cultures, religions and beliefs of the new Rome residents were different from the one of the previous citizens of the capital and this led to the creation of the largest assemblage of non-Catholic edifices; making the Aventino one of the first multicultural neighborhoods.

People living in the Aventino were disregarded by the inner city of Rome and often lived in poverty with reduced services dedicated to them. This occurred because they served the solely objective of increasing the number of residents of the city Rome. Thus, they were left out of the urban planning and suffered inequality among other

The pivotal points for a successful improvement of a neighborhood can be summed up in: communication with the community, preservation of the history of the area, inclusion, media discourse. Below are some examples and recommendations that could apply to Tarlabaşı as well as to other neighborhoods in the world.

A Finnish NGO started the project Qutomo in 2012. Qutomo is a project based on the organization of cooperation forums that saw the participation of the local administration and the community of singular neighborhoods. The project was implemented by the NGO and was thought to prevent decision-making that did not include the community. For each encounter a member of a community would participate and bring up the issues and ideas of their group.

In Barcelona, Spain, since the 1990s is available for migrants a council they can refer to. In addition to this, a working group on refugees and foreigners is also active. Given the high number of academics studying foreigners and migration issues in Turkey, this would be a valuable route to