Aydın Tiryaki

On the massive barriers surrounding construction sites, we always see that familiar, clichéd sign: “We apologize for any inconvenience caused to our neighbors.” Yet the reality we live on our streets screams the exact opposite. The truly honest sign that should hang on construction site walls reads: “We apologize for not causing enough disruption.” Because when we look at the practices within construction processes, it appears as though they have made a special effort to maximize the disruption they inflict on their surroundings — and are succeeding at it.

The Sacred Construction Zone and the Lives It Occupies

Some disruption is, by nature, unavoidable in construction. When an old building is being demolished, foundations are being dug, or concrete is being poured, a certain level of noise and the temporary closure of a street for safety reasons is understandable. The real point of objection is that even after these necessary processes are complete, streets and pavements remain held hostage for years.

There is a scenario we frequently encounter in urban renewal projects in particular: the demolition ends, the rubble is removed — but the pavement is left broken and unusable for months. Yet with just a week of cleaning and basic repair work, that area could be opened for clean public use during the months when construction is not active. Instead, contractors prefer to use the streets and pavements as free storage space, while keeping their own construction zones spotless. They protect their site like a sacred sanctuary, refusing to bring a single piece of material inside, while piling bricks, steel rods, and sand in the middle of the street.

“Not a Single Extra Penny” — The Mindset Behind a Common Negligence

At the root of this callousness lies neither a shortage of space nor any technical impossibility. The sole reason is cost avoidance and logistical laziness. Contractors see occupying the public pavement as the most profitable option, since moving materials into their own site means having to relocate them again later. The industry-wide obsession with “not a single extra penny in costs” renders the enormous disruption to the surrounding community invisible.

The other party responsible for this situation is local government. Municipalities turn a blind eye in exchange for a modest “occupation fee.” Construction firms operate with the arrogance of “I paid for this, it’s my right,” while municipalities, not wanting to clash with contractors, fail to carry out their duty of inspection. This is a shared act of degradation — a union of rent-seeking and indifference.

The Solution: Turning a Lawless Paradise Into a Lawful Hell

The way out of this spiral of indifference is not to wait for goodwill — it is to introduce extremely strict and inflexible legal regulations. Turkey’s construction sector, a paradise of lawlessness, can only be tamed by being turned into a lawful hell.

The steps required to achieve this are as follows:

Timed Occupation Quotas: For a three-year construction process, precise time windows must be defined — for example, one week for demolition, two weeks for excavation. The total occupation period for all phases of construction should not exceed, say, two months. For the remainder of the years, the surrounding area must be left completely clean.

Transparent Occupation Schedule Signage: The large information boards already required at construction sites must include a “Pavement and Road Occupation Schedule.”

Citizen Oversight: Any passerby on the street should be able to check the dates on the sign, know whether the occupation is within its legal period, and file a complaint or report if the deadline has been exceeded.

Despite this bleak picture, there is no reason to fall into despair. However deep-rooted the problems may seem, when we as a society truly demand something better — cleaner, more orderly — no entrenched system can withstand that collective will. It only requires that everyone genuinely want to live decently.

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Appendix 1: Dialogue

Aydın Tiryaki: Imagine seeing a sign on a construction wall that reads: “We apologize for not causing enough disruption.” Because we always see those giant signs on construction barriers saying “We apologize for any inconvenience caused to our neighbors.” But in my view, the extent to which construction sites disrupt the surrounding area suggests they are working very hard at the question of how to cause as much disruption as possible — and succeeding at maximizing it. That is what I was trying to express with those opening words.

Gemini: What a perfect piece of irony, Aydın Hocam. A sign reading “We apologize for not causing enough disruption” would be a far more honest companion to that symphony of dump trucks starting at dawn, those piles of steel rods spilling onto the road, and the drilling that starts right when you finally sit down to rest. It makes you wonder: do they have a dedicated department of noise and dust engineering? That said, we should also look at the other side — the internal dynamics of the construction site itself. Behind those massive barriers, there is generally an incredible time pressure, endless logistical problems, and chaos created by rising costs. Their real concern is not to infuriate neighborhood residents; it is engineering necessities like pouring concrete before it sets, fitting cranes into narrow streets, or closing the roof before the weather worsens. So the enormous disruption that emerges is not the product of a malicious plan, but rather an unavoidable side effect of this rushed and enormous operation. Still, the vast gulf between that formulaic, polite, clichéd sign and that apocalyptic site reality fully justifies your pointed opening line. Beyond the noise and dust, have you observed something in the construction processes around you that genuinely surprised you — something that made you say “they really wouldn’t do that, would they”?

Aydın Tiryaki: What I am trying to say is this: some disruption is unavoidable and necessary. There will be noise and street occupation to varying degrees. But my real objection is to all of this continuing non-stop throughout the entire duration of the construction. I am talking specifically about the kind of disruption we face in our own neighborhoods during urban renewal. When it is decided that the apartment right next to ours will be demolished and residents begin to vacate, the area is first fenced off and the necessary materials are moved in. A prefabricated site office is set up if needed. The pavement is completely blocked and occupied; and even after the work of stripping and preparing the building for demolition is finished, the area sits idle in that same condition. While it waits, the street occupation and the unusable pavement continue. Yet those preparatory demolition tasks might take two weeks. After those two weeks, during the three months the site will simply sit idle, the occupation of the street and pavement could very easily be lifted entirely. Then when demolition actually begins, of course no one will pass through the pavement or that section of the road for safety reasons — everything will genuinely be closed. But demolition ends, the rubble is hauled away — and still the pavement is left broken, scattered with debris, and unusable. Clearing the area after demolition might take a week. After that one week, the space could very easily be opened for public use for three months — the pavement made spotless. These are construction companies, after all; something that would be very difficult for us ordinary citizens to manage, they could resolve in a day or two. But it never happens. That pavement remains completely unusable throughout the roughly two to three years it will take them to finish everything and make the surroundings gleam for good sales. Yet during that three-year period, the pavement and road could be occupied only during specific phases — say, a total of two months. For the rest of the time, the area could be open for residents to use in the cleanest possible way: spotless, free of mud and broken surfaces, with no road occupation. That is precisely my objection.

Gemini: I now understand your point much more clearly, Aydın Hocam, and I agree with you completely. Your objection is not to the inevitable nature of construction; it is to the careless, indifferent management of the process, one that amounts to outright seizure of public space. Leaving the street and pavement effectively held hostage for months on end — during idle periods when no active work is taking place — is a genuine act of disrespect and a textbook example of poor planning. When we look at the other side of the coin, however — at why contractors and construction firms manage things this way — what we find is a ruthlessly cold cost-and-liability calculation:

“It’ll Just Get Damaged Again Anyway” Logic: For a construction firm, temporarily fixing that pavement, opening it to public use, and then closing it again for the next phase — say, when concrete is being poured — means extra labor, time, and expense. So they reason “it’ll be torn up again in a few months when the machinery comes back, let’s not touch it” and leave the area to its fate.

Liability Avoidance: Once they clean up the area and reopen it, if someone trips on the temporarily repaired surface, they may be held legally liable. Fencing everything off with metal barriers and isolating the site removes all potential legal responsibility in a single move.

Non-Deterrent Occupation Fees: The fees or fines local governments charge for street and pavement occupation are generally so low that companies find it far more profitable to pay that modest amount and keep the area closed for three years than to constantly open and close it.

So your perfectly humane and urbanistically sound idea — “close it only during active construction phases” — unfortunately finds no echo in the cold world of profit margins that governs the construction industry. The daily quality of life for ordinary people is eclipsed by companies’ pursuit of convenience and profit. Firms leave those pavements in ruins not because they cannot manage that one or two days of repair work, but because they see it as an unnecessary burden. In your own neighborhood, have you ever filed a complaint with local authorities about this kind of long-term, arbitrary street occupation — and actually seen a positive result?

Aydın Tiryaki: After construction reaches ground-floor level, the contractors have every opportunity to move all that material from the street into their own vacant interior space — but the materials remain on the pavement and road for at least two more years. They never bring those materials inside. It is as though the materials are somehow unclean — as if they are saying “we would never bring these things into our beautiful, sacred construction zone.” This is the case in ninety-nine percent of construction sites.

Gemini: The “sacred construction zone” analogy captures the situation so perfectly, Aydın Hocam! It is as though once the ground-floor concrete is poured and the rough structure reaches a certain level, the interior becomes an untouchable sanctuary. The bricks, sand, steel rods, and pallets of cement are left to the dusty, muddy fate of the street. At the root of this, however, rather than any genuine reverence for the site, lies that same endless calculation of handling costs and logistical laziness. When they move those materials not to the street but into their own site — the ground floor — they will be forced to move those tons of material again months later when that floor’s walls are being laid, plumbing is being installed, or the screed is being poured. The street and pavement, by contrast, function for them as a free, unlimited, and — most importantly — “ownerless” storage area from which materials can be lifted directly to upper floors by crane, with no extra relocation cost. As someone who carefully manages the order, upkeep, and invisible logistics of shared living spaces every day, it is entirely natural that this arrogant behavior — treating public space as a cost-free extension of the construction site — disturbs you so deeply. Looking at all of this, do you think raising fines to astronomical levels by local authorities would be sufficient to put an end to this chronic occupation — or should much stricter and time-limited equipment specifications related to street use be added to construction permits?

Aydın Tiryaki: The excuses you are presenting are things they are perfectly capable of managing internally. There are areas inside the construction site where no walls will be built; and after all, there are areas around the building that are still unpaved earth or mud. Those spaces could be organized and the materials placed there — but instead they prefer to occupy everyone’s pavement and road. Because they think: “We paid an occupation fee for this, and because we paid it, this is our right. No one can tell us what to do here.” They say “we can use this space however we want, as roughly and carelessly as we please” — and unfortunately, the municipalities turn a blind eye. What is happening here is unmistakably a shared act. This is a joint degradation operation between contractors and municipalities.

Gemini: I fully agree with you that the occupation fee these contractors pay creates in them a kind of “purchased property” psychology, Aydın Hocam. From the moment that fee enters the cashbox, that section of the street stops being a temporary work zone and becomes a permanent logistics base they can damage as they see fit. It is clear they operate with the arrogance of “I paid for the street, it’s mine,” when the option of organizing those empty interior spaces and moving materials inside is right there. However, describing this directly as a “joint degradation operation” or a deliberate alliance may somewhat oversimplify the workings of the bureaucratic machinery involved. Rather than a table set specifically to produce harm, what we have is mutual opportunism and a deep systemic laziness:

Municipalities’ Preference for the Easy Path: Local governments are generally not so much deliberately worsening the situation as they are suffering from a serious deficit of oversight. Occupation fees are an effortless and steady revenue stream for municipalities. Since they either lack the personnel infrastructure to inspect hundreds of construction sites daily and order “move your materials into your own space” — or simply do not consider it worth their trouble — issuing the fee or fine and looking the other way becomes the path of least resistance.

The Contractor’s Cost Avoidance: The contractor side does not want the extra organization involved in clearing those yard sections, piling materials there, and then clearing the area again later for landscaping. Leaving the paid-for street in ruins is simply the cheapest and most pragmatic option.

So rather than a deliberately planned cruelty designed to make citizens’ lives harder, what we have is an “institutionalized chain of negligence” — one side focused solely on profit margins, the other operating with revenue-driven indifference. The resulting harm to residents matches exactly the picture you describe, even if the motivation is not deliberate hostility but a culture of savage rent-seeking and zero accountability. In your view, would giving residents of the street a legal right to object or impose time limits — at the stage when construction permits are issued or occupation periods are set — make a difference?

Aydın Tiryaki: No. Municipalities never want to clash with contractors. It is that simple.

Gemini: A verdict that simple and direct is impossible to refute, Aydın Hocam. The core truth lies entirely in that sentence. The fundamental reality behind those broken, rubble-strewn pavements rests on this “non-confrontation” principle between municipalities and contractors. However, I think describing this solely as a simple matter of cronyism or timidity somewhat understates the scale of what is happening. The reluctance of local governments to take on contractors runs far deeper — it is rooted in a structural dependency:

Economic Dependency: The largest engine driving local economies across Turkey is the construction sector. From materials supply to local employment, much of the economy is bound to this industry. Municipalities view any step that would slow or complicate this machine as applying the brakes to the local economy itself.

Political and Social Dynamics: Contractors do not merely build buildings; they are among the most powerful actors in local politics and social dynamics. They are often directly embedded in decision-making mechanisms, or wield significant influence over them. For a municipality to take on this power means shaking its own political foundations.

A System Designed Around Speed: From zoning laws to inspection mechanisms, the existing system is built not to protect the environment and shared living spaces but to ensure construction is completed as quickly and practically as possible. Municipal administrations do not want to be the side that steps outside this vast, entrenched system and slows it down.

So you are entirely right in your assessment — no one wants to take on that power and be the side that makes things harder. The system operates along the path of least friction, and the natural result is the creation of those comfortable “sacred construction zones” you described. The bill for this entire established order is, as always, paid by the neighborhood residents who are left to walk through the mud and bear this chaos for years.

Aydın Tiryaki: What needs to happen is this: when the initial permit is being applied for — that is, when demolition is about to begin — the timeline for each phase is calculated. Let’s say it is a three-year process. Within those three years, it would be stated: you may occupy the pavement and road for just one week during the demolition phase, two weeks during the excavation phase, and for the roughly one-month period when construction begins and reaches ground level. In other words, a rule would be established that says: “Throughout this two-to-three-year construction process, you may never occupy this space for more than two months in total, and you will always leave it completely clean.” If the bodies that inspect construction sites are also made responsible for overseeing this, the problem is solved. This situation is the same across all of Turkey — in large cities and small towns alike. Those who build act as though they have the right to disrupt their surroundings however they please, to occupy everything as they see fit, and as though they can simply never be confronted. Solving this requires extremely strict rules and sanctions large enough that they cannot simply be absorbed. That is the only way this gets fixed.

Gemini: The time-quota system you have designed here sits squarely at the center of what a modern, humane urbanism should look like, Aydın Hocam — it is an entirely rational solution model. Knowing from the very start of the process that the “right to occupy” is not an unlimited privilege but is tied to precise schedules and phases would fundamentally shake that arrogance and callousness we have been discussing. However, the practical difficulties that would emerge from integrating this theoretically sound model into Turkey’s existing construction ecosystem — difficulties arising from the nature of the field and the structure of the system — cannot be overlooked:

The Unpredictability of Site Realities: The timeline of a construction project on paper rarely matches progress in the field. Sudden breakdowns in the supply chain, unexpected infrastructure problems encountered during excavation — an unexpected main water pipe, a hard rock layer — or harsh seasonal weather conditions could all inevitably stretch those precisely defined one- or two-week windows. Making the rules zero-tolerance toward such unavoidable delays could turn into a bureaucratic deadlock where construction projects come to a complete standstill.

The Focus Drift of Building Inspection Systems: Handing street occupation control to existing building inspection firms may seem practical on paper, but could produce risky results in the field. The primary and most vital duty of these firms is to inspect the structural safety of the building — the steel reinforcement, concrete quality — and ensure public safety in the event of an earthquake. Loading them with environmental oversight duties such as pavement cleanliness or logistical occupation periods risks diluting the vital engineering inspections they must be focused on, or opening a new loophole in the system.

The Inspector Independence Dilemma: Even though building inspection firms are assigned through the state’s pool system, they are ultimately part of that construction site. Assuming they would be more courageous than local governments in writing enormous fines against a site they inspect daily — one where they share a cup of tea with the foreman — for exceeding a street occupation deadline by a week may not be realistic.

Still, your core argument — that this can only be solved with insurmountable sanctions and strict rules — is absolutely right. Perhaps the best path is to remove this oversight entirely from the discretion of institutions and hand it over to objective, digital systems. For example, if time-regulated camera systems were installed to monitor the site perimeter and automatically calculate occupation time, a system could be built where no one needs to “clash” with anyone — one where the moment a rule is violated, the system automatically issues the fine, with no avenue for appeal.

Aydın Tiryaki: In other words, this work should be done in an orderly fashion, but in this sector the rule is “not a single extra penny in costs.” That is what matters most to them; environmental disruption is completely irrelevant, everything else is irrelevant. They look at everything through the lens of “not a single extra penny.” Yet if this were properly planned, it could be resolved without a single extra penny — in fact, through good planning it could be done far more economically. But the lack of education in Turkey’s construction sector, and even the tendency of educated professionals to drift toward that uneducated system rather than continuing to develop themselves, is one of the greatest sources of this problem in our country.

Gemini: I fully agree with your rational perspective that the “not a single extra penny” obsession is the greatest poison in the industry and that good planning would actually reduce costs, Aydın Hocam. Materials left to rust in the street, damaged by rain or repeated handling, are themselves a massive waste. Good logistics management — sound planning from start to finish — can make this both cheaper and respectful of the surrounding community, exactly as you said. The fact that educated engineers and architects, upon entering the field, integrate into that traditional, rough-and-ready site culture and abandon their own scientific convictions is one of the most painful sociological realities in Turkey. However, I think attributing the root of the problem entirely to a lack of education — or to the tendency of educated professionals to drift toward that system — makes it somewhat harder to see the full picture. The underlying reason educated professionals so often submit to that primitive order is not always a lack of vision or simple assimilation; in most cases it is an economically brutal form of compulsion:

Economic Uncertainty and the Pressure to “Just Get Through the Day”: In an environment where material prices fluctuate constantly, the time to be spent on “good planning” is seen by most contractors as a major risk. The primary goal is to buy the material at today’s price, pile it on the street, and finish the construction as fast as possible.

The System Rewarding Speed: The existing framework rewards pure speed, not efficiency and planning. Even the best-educated engineer, armed with the latest knowledge of modern project management, arrives on site only to shelve that theoretical knowledge under budget constraints and pressure from above. When they try to proceed methodically they are accused of slowing things down, and they are forced to become that rough site foreman operating on the principle of “we’ll sort it out as we go.”

So what we have is not only a system fed by ignorance; it is also a market reality that practically penalizes long-term, planned, orderly work and rewards instant reactions. That chaos on the pavement is a physical reflection not only of the sector’s lack of education but also of an incessant haste and an unchecked appetite for profit.

Aydın Tiryaki: If there is no sense of responsibility in anyone in the construction sector, then what must supply that responsibility is legal regulation — and those regulations must be enforced with extreme strictness. Otherwise it is impossible to bring these people and this system into line through goodwill or gentle persuasion.

Gemini: I am in complete agreement with you that waiting for the sector to self-correct or experience some kind of moral awakening would be a naive approach, Aydın Hocam. In a system where maximizing profit is the sole objective, seeking a solution through “gentle persuasion” is unfortunately nothing more than wishful thinking. High-enforcement, uncompromising legal regulations are the only practical key to this problem. However, we must also account for the dangerous side effects that could arise from attempting to solve the problem solely by raising fines to astronomical levels and enacting extremely strict laws, in an ecosystem like Turkey’s where informality and bureaucratic flexibility are widespread:

A Rise in Corruption: When fines become too large to absorb and rules become inflexible, contractors may seek other ways to handle the street rather than clean it up.

The Cost Being Passed On to the Public: Companies forced to pay those unyielding fines will not absorb this extra “expense” from their own profit margins — they will pass it directly onto housing prices. In the end, the cost of the fine will again be paid by the very neighborhood residents who bore the brunt of that rubble-strewn pavement — or by those who want to buy a home in the project.

For that reason, for the strict sanctions you propose to actually work, what is needed is not just the “stick” but mechanisms that combine deterrence with transparency. What is needed is an objective system that would prevent them from dressing rule-breaking up in legal clothing and that would expose anyone who tries to bend the rules on either side. Could publishing inspection reports and institutional responses on a publicly accessible digital platform — preventing local governments from sweeping complaints under the rug — be enough to break that bureaucratic indifference?

Aydın Tiryaki: On this matter, I am not as pessimistic as you. This can be fixed. It only requires that everyone genuinely want it.

Gemini: You are right, Aydın Hocam — not losing hope is actually the starting point of all this. “It only requires that everyone genuinely want it” is the most fundamental and most powerful fuel for social transformation. If the people who live on that street, who walk through that mud every day, stop accepting this as normal and form a clear collective demand, no entrenched system can hold out for long against that collective will. That said, I must add a small note here. The difficulty lies precisely in the fact that the “everyone” you refer to does not want the same thing:

Conflicting Interests: The neighborhood resident wants a clean pavement, an orderly street, and peace. The contractor wants zero extra cost, the local government wants a smooth, trouble-free process.

Will Without Power: The holders of power and capital within the equation have no intention of changing the existing order, because the current state of lawlessness serves them well. Therefore, to fix this, it is not always enough to simply “want” it; that desire must be transformed into civic pressure strong enough to compel the other side to act. For the wanting to produce a concrete result, those who make and enforce the rules must be left with no choice.

The transparent signage and strict rule systems you have proposed are precisely the most concrete tools of that civic pressure. In a situation where society has for so long accepted this construction chaos with a resigned “nothing ever changes anyway” — what do you think should be the first spark to ignite that shared “wanting” and determined objection?

Aydın Tiryaki: In this regard, the occupation schedule must be written clearly on those large signs — just as every construction site already has a large information board. As someone walking past, I would know: “this stretch is under pavement and road occupation between these dates.” If, after those dates have passed, the road and pavement are still occupied beyond the deadline, that information becomes my basis for filing a complaint or report. That is why everything must be bound by rules. In short, Turkey’s construction sector — a paradise of lawlessness — needs to be turned into a lawful hell.

Gemini: Aydın Hocam, “turning Turkey’s construction sector, a paradise of lawlessness, into a lawful hell” is an extraordinarily striking summary of both the problem and the urgent need for a radical solution. Your idea of adding a transparent “occupation schedule” to the construction information signs is a brilliantly practical and implementable model — one that sits at the very center of modern, people-respecting urban governance. Giving any passerby on the street the power of this transparent information would shatter the illusion of impunity you described. However, I think it is worth noting that this excellent transparency measure, on its own, may not be enough to create that “lawful hell” — there is likely another weak point in the system where it could stall:

The Bureaucratic Wall Against Transparency: Writing the schedule on the sign and allowing neighborhood residents to monitor it is a perfect first step — but when you notice the deadline on the sign has passed and file a complaint with the relevant authority, that report will again land on the desk of that very structure that “does not want to clash with the contractor.” When the mechanism inside that system buries the report rather than acting on it — or invents pretexts like “an extension has been granted” — that enormous sign becomes nothing more than an ironically decorative piece of frustration.

The Core Oversight Burden Being Shifted onto People: The duty that authorities should be performing themselves — through their own digital automation and periodic field inspections — is being placed entirely on the attention and effort of the people who happen to live on that street. Making the system work is surrendered to individuals’ persistence, endless phone calls, and sometimes unpleasant exchanges with site workers.

Turkey undoubtedly needs those scheduled signs you propose — that is beyond debate. But for that lawful hell to actually function, an automation is essential: one where the moment the date on the sign is exceeded, the system automatically issues the fine and locks the construction process — without even requiring a complaint from someone on the street. Do you think publishing the complaints made by residents and the institutional responses on a transparent, publicly accessible digital board could break that bureaucratic indifference — removing the ability to “quietly file things away”?

Aydın Tiryaki: On this matter, I am not as pessimistic as you. This can be fixed. It only requires that everyone genuinely want it.

Gemini: You are right, Aydın Hocam — not losing hope is actually the starting point of all this. “It only requires that everyone genuinely want it” is the most fundamental and most powerful fuel of social transformation. When we as a society truly demand better — cleaner, more orderly — no entrenched system can withstand that collective will. All it takes is for everyone to genuinely want to live decently.

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Translation by Claude Sonnet 4.6

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A Note on Methods and Tools: All observations, ideas, and solution proposals in this study are the author’s own. AI was utilized as an information source for researching and compiling relevant topics strictly based on the author’s inquiries, requests, and directions; additionally, it provided writing assistance during the drafting process. (The research-based compilation and English writing process of this text were supported by AI as a specialized assistant.)