Apart from the environmental factors, the implications of moving ministries to the suburbs for democracy are worth noting.

Have you ever thought of the behavior patterns of Turks? Let me start for you. The people of Turkey, regardless of their ethnic origins, prefer discussing the problems of the country over discussing those of their neighborhood. Is it because the institutional infrastructure of the country is distorted more than that of the neighborhood? I don’t know the reason, but this is the obvious fact. Today let me talk about a tendency visible in Ankara, based on my observations of my neighborhood.

From my office window I can see a giant building rising day by day through the trees. The construction of the new prime ministry building is continuing rapidly in Söğütözü, Ankara, in a part of the Atatürk Forest Farm and Zoo territory. The prime ministry will be a next-door neighbor of the TOBB University Economics and Technology campus, where the TEPAV building is located. It is not only the prime ministry. Almost all of the ministries have new premises under construction, all out of the city center. It is a kind of suburbanization. They are moving uptown to premises surrounded with high walls. At first glance, I think this is a bad idea. It gives an idea about the quality of the city. There are two types of cities, if I have to repeat: those where you can walk and those where you can only drive. One that has ministries in the suburbs corresponds to the second type. Indeed, given the fact that Ankara has made no progress on the subway infrastructure since the previous mayor who was in power four electoral periods before, there is no way the city can belong to the first group. The Ankara subway has not grown one inch since the previous mayor, Karayalçın.

Last week I was in Washington for only 24 hours. The weather was nice. I took long walks on the spacious sidewalks of the city. I saw attractive buildings. I was not bored even for a second. You can walk to the White House in spite of the latest attacks. The only difference was that there were more cops around. All of the state buildings are in the city center. That’s when these thoughts came to mind. In Ankara, public buildings are moving away from the downtown, but Americans are preserving everything in their original place. I believe this is worth considering. Based on which parameters do you decide to move a ministry uptown? Are outcomes concerning energy efficiency considered in the evaluation criteria? After all, ministries will be moved from locations accessible by foot to locations accessible only by car. People will have to use their cars more often. This is the first point. Second, people who visit ministries for follow-up work will have to drive rather than walk. Third, heating will become costlier as the facilities will move to less populated locations. People live in urban areas for a reason: it is relatively cheaper and environment-friendly.

Apart from the environmental factors, the implications for democracy are worth noting. In democratic countries, people are not confined to cars when they go to a ministry. No wonder the favorite city of the 19-year mayor of Ankara is Astana, Kazakhstan.

How can the drawbacks for environment efficiency and inconvenience of accessibility caused by moving public buildings to suburbs be offset? Obviously by expanding the reach of the subway system. Only then can Ankara become a city where people can walk and ministries become as accessible as they are currently.

Just wanted to warn you.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 07.05.2013