Residents’ decision-making in urban regeneration: consent and coercion in Çorum, Turkey’s Kale neighbourhood

Urban regeneration in Turkey affects residents in diverse ways. However, research on their decision-making regarding urban regeneration projects is limited, making it challenging to address their concerns. Using the case of Çorum’s Kale neighbourhood, this study examined residents’ decision-making in Turkey’s urban regeneration projects and the Turkish government’s role in shaping their decisions through a Gramscian theoretical framework. Relevant project documents and newspapers, interviews, field observations, photographic documentation, and Tillmann-Healy’s (2003) ‘friendship as method’ were used to acquire data for this investigation. The central issue causing residents to reject urban regeneration is the absence of economic advantages, which involves undervaluing their existing properties, reselling newly constructed, relatively smaller units at higher prices, and indebting them with substantial mortgages. This study contributes to the literature by presenting a nuanced analysis of decision-making regarding urban regeneration in a highly polarized and contentious context and an understudied, peripheral region in Turkey.