Dissecting the actors and actions undermining urban transformation: evidence from legal disputes

Urban transformation is a critical imperative for contemporary cities, yet it is perpetually fraught with challenges. Conventional scholarship on urban transformation often highlights broad structural barriers such as governance fragmentation and economic constraints as the primary impediments to successful implementation. However, this perspective tends to overlook the more granular, active forms of obstruction that occur within legal and institutional processes. As a result, there remains a significant gap in understanding the concrete actions and specific actors that deliberately or indirectly undermine transformation efforts through legal disputes, administrative interventions, or procedural manipulation. Conducting a content analysis on 669 urban transformation dispute case files of appeal courts, 2016–2022, this study brings to light the different actions and actors undermining Istanbul’s urban transformation. The results show that 50.52% of the cases involve undermining actions rating 90% and above through four main titles: inaccurate risky area and building declaration, zoning violation, unlawful demands and actions of citizens, and the legalization of illegal actions by the governments. These obstructions are caused by citizens 74.26%, legislators 13.60%, and public officials 12.11% respectively. The results challenge the conventional top-down narrative by qualitatively demonstrating the unexpected distribution of obstruction responsibility among stakeholders. The study highlights the need for responsive and interactive participatory frameworks that address unmet citizen demands proactively to prevent their escalation into formal legal conflicts.