MEGARON, cilt.13, sa.3, ss.431-441, 2018 (ESCI)
Neoliberal urbanization policies began to affect Canakkale from the beginning of 2010. With this effect, the increasing force on urban growth has led to the development of several coastline projects in Canakkale. The civil initiatives of the city have started a resistant struggle, against the rising growth, in and out of the city council to prevent the implementation of these projects. Today against the neolibaral urbanization the concept of 'the Right to the City' which Lefebvre developped in 1968, gained more significance. The right to the city movement which organized against the projects developed with the aim of transforming urban space is the main goal of this study. The urban opposition flourished from civil society emerged with the demand to participate in the decision-making on the spatial development of the city by the municipality. The struggle, then, gradually became a struggle for the right to the city, spreading a broader social dimension and more stability. Within the scope of this research, two projects which were halted by the urban opposition, including the Marina project and the project developed in the area of Tekel land, were discussed. The emergence of these projects, their content and the urban opposition organized against these projects were analyzed with the in-depth interviews, and the media monitoring and the publications of urban opposition are also examined in this context. Where two different forms of urban opposition, namely deliberative and resistant, experienced in the case of Canakkale, the civil society in the city strengthened and the relationship between the municipality and the civil society was redefined. This article claims that right to the city struggle in Canakkale has emerged from a mutual relationship between the consolidation of local democracy and social transformation.