Protracted displacement and housing systems in intermediary cities: the case of Syrians in Torbalı Türkiye

Abstract

This article investigates the dynamics of complex housing systems within the context of large-scale protracted displacement in Turkey/Türkiye. It presents new empirical findings from a qualitative study conducted in Torbalı a rapidly growing intermediate city with a significant population of Syrian displaced people. Drawing on theoretical and conceptual insights from housing studies urban studies and migration studies the article assesses the ways in which displacement materialises in place through housing and contributes to city-making and urbanisation processes informally incrementally and in locally and historically contingent manners. We argue that the forms and dynamics of emerging housing exhibit both continuity but most markedly significant disjuncture from past housing trajectories in Torbalı. This challenges the implicit assumption of legal uniformity of self-builders common in incremental housing debates and suggests that the notion of incremental housing has limited relevance in contexts of protracted urban displacement. Furthermore findings underline the significance of legal dimensions in energising housing informalities, in grading socio-legal statuses of resident populations, in bounding displaced people’s mobilities, in demarcating labour flows, in moulding rental markets, and in directing the flows of housing materials. These in turn shape current and future urban built environments and mould the ways in which the urbanisation of refuge manifests. © 2025 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.