Central-metropolitan government relations over urban infrastructure governance: The case of Istanbul

One of the critical issues between national/central and metropolitan governments is deciding, planning, and running urban infrastructures. There can be clear-cut lines for competences for planning and financing urban infrastructures where either central or metropolitan governments hold overall power to decide and plan urban infrastructures according to specific policy vision. Yet, depending on the political system and domestic politics, the competences and relations between the two levels vary and are ridden with tensions. These tensions can result in ineffective outcomes, waste of resources, environmental degradation, and hinderance to development. Also, the issue is not pure scale or technocratic matter but involves entangled relations between political, bureaucratic and market actors. Therefore, governance of urban infrastructures is a matter which needs to be analyzed both in generic and specific terms from different angles in order to evaluate and improve the current practices. This chapter examines the governance of smart urban infrastructure policy in the city-region of Istanbul as a case study. It aims to shed some light on the differing and complex relations between the central and metropolitan government in the country over the governance of urban infrastructures for 'smartening' efforts.