Informal settlements, called gecekondus (meaning “built overnight”), have appeared on the Turkish scene since the 1950s as the result of rapid urbanization. In the attempts to modernize and incorporate society into the global capitalist economy, the agricultural sector was mechanized to produce for the market by the support of the Marshall Plan; highways were built, and industrialization, although limited, grew in big cities, resulting in mass migration from villages to cities. Predictably, the cit…