Once upon a time, Turkey was a country of the middle class raising children in the same garden and walking to the future on the same sidewalk. Today, concrete is rising, but society is falling.
To understand this story, we need to go back a bit.
When we look at Turkey's political history, we see that the left and right-wing governments had fierce debates with each other on many issues. But there was one issue on which no matter who came to power, they would agree on the same point: Keeping the central pillar standing. Because those shoulders have always carried the burden and hope of this country.
In the 1980s, not only wages but also dreams were more accessible.
Husband and wife, a family of civil servants, a working couple, through regular monthly payments from their salaries knew that within years they could have a cooperative house. Symbols of this hope have risen all over Turkey: Batıkent in Ankara, Ataköy in Istanbul, Mersin Yenişehir, İzmir Egekent-EVKA, Elazığ Doğukent, Erzurum Dadaşkent...
But all these buildings were not just concrete blocks; they were an ideal of life.
People from Edirne and Kars became neighbors in the same housing complex. Sinopites and Mersinites raised children in the same park. People from Izmir and people from Van drank tea in the same garden. People are not just a house; equality, solidarity and trust buying them. Cooperative estates were Turkey's most natural self-created spaces of social cohesion.
It is a big mistake to see the middle class as a purely economic category.
In these cities, crime rates were low and conflicts were rare because people formed bonds that were difficult to separate. They studied in the same schools, played in the same streets, grew up together. Friendships were formed, business partnerships were born, marriages took place. This way of life tied society together with invisible pillars.
Over time, this middle class has become the country's social load-bearing column has become.
It was on this culture of solidarity that the nation-state sought to build a common future. It was precisely in these neighborhoods that the sociological leap created by the state's policies encouraging cooperatives became visible.
However, this strong structure did not last long.
TOKİ, which was established to support cooperatives, has become a competitor rather than an alternative to cooperatives. The low-cost economy of solidarity was replaced by revenue sharing protocols. As the sense of community disappeared in the shadow of high walls, social mixing turned into invisible class barriers.
(Earthquake housing should be kept separate in this table because it is the product of a different necessity).
Today, many social housing projects are located on the outskirts of cities, intertwined with the rural fabric, where poverty is made visible. segregation zones as a middle class. Instead of strengthening the middle class, this model creates a permanent underclass. Housing ceases to be a social right and becomes a new type of poverty, spatially stigmatized and surrounded by low opportunities.
And in TOKİ's big projects, people entering through the same door don't even look at each other.
Balconies are covered with colored glass... Neighborhood is like a luxury... Even in the same complex, there are different worlds: one close to the sky, one in its shadow.
All this transformation has become even more evident through political preferences.
This is where the difference between the role the government assigns to society by saying “charity is part of our culture” and the “we will strengthen the middle class” approach of the past emerges. At that time, the state was trying to empower its citizens without impoverishing them, whereas today, instead of sustaining the middle class, some policies quietly melting.
Let's face it:
As a country loses its middle class, it does not only become poorer; it loses its character.
Streets become quiet, neighborhoods die, the sense of a common future disappears.
Cooperatives showed us a society that was once possible:
A strong society built by lives that touch each other...
A country of people who share the same table, grow up in the shade of the same tree, walk to the future on the same sidewalk...
Today, walls are thickening, balconies are closing, lives are drifting apart.
Concrete goes up, society goes down.
So it's not just about housing.
The question is whether the middle class, which carries the memory of this country, can rise again.
This is precisely why we are looking for an answer to an inevitable question:
Will we risk becoming a society again?
Or will we live in the same city and turn into a silent crowd that has given up even looking at each other's faces?
It is the social answer to this question that will determine our future.