Gevrek Model will be the solution to multiple crises

Speaking at the meeting held within the scope of the work on the 2025-2029 Strategic Plan, which was initiated under the leadership of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Dr. Cemil Tugay, Prof. Dr. Koray Velibeyoğlu, President of Izmir Planning Agency (IZPA), said: “This period will be a period in which the Metropolitan Municipality and municipal subsidiaries will act with common principles and goals. Coping with multiple crises requires a way of thinking that links the individual problems of the city with the general functioning of society and nature.”

Work on the 2025-2029 Strategic Plan, initiated under the leadership of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Dr. Cemil Tugay, continues at full speed. Bureaucrats of the Metropolitan Municipality, IZPA, IZSU and ESHOT officials, general managers and coordinators of municipal companies came together within the scope of the work initiated to plan Izmir and put forward a vision for the future of the city.
 

In the meeting attended by Barış Karcı, Secretary General of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, Prof. Dr. Koray Velibeyoğlu, President of Izmir Planning Agency (IZPA), Asuman Türkmen Meral, Head of Strategy Development Department of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, and Prof. Dr. Renan Funda Barbaros, Member of IZPA Scientific Board, presentations were made on how a social and ecological system that enables a new generation of municipalism, which is at the center of the 2025-2029 Strategic Plan, and the fight against multiple crises can be established in Izmir.
 

The model, which is seen as a participatory, social and ecological roadmap based on data and science, and of which Mayor Tugay initiated an example in Karşıyaka, is intended to be one of the key systems for all the work of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, affiliated companies, ESHOT and İZSU. The aim is to create an ecologically safe, socially just and resilient city.

“Of historical importance”
Stating that the process itself is of historic importance, Prof. Dr. Koray Velibeyoğlu, President of Izmir Planning Agency (IZPA), said: “This will be a period in which the Metropolitan Municipality, IZSU, ESHOT and municipal subsidiaries will act with common principles and goals. Coping with multiple crises requires a way of thinking that connects the singular problems of the city with the general functioning of society and nature.”

“We must implement game-changing practices”
Referring to the new generation of municipalism, which was presented by Prof. Dr. Fikret Adaman, a member of the IZPA Scientific Board, as a process within the scope of strategic plan studies, Velibeyoğlu said, “You need to have a future vision. You need to have a 30-year, 50-year perspective on the question 'Where are we going? ' We need to agree on principles and goals. It is important to continue good and best practices, practices that have been tried before and have been judged to be good, but in order to move forward in an era of multiple crises, we must also implement game-changing practices.”

Izmir's 50 years will be planned
Velibeyoğlu also said, “In the short term, our goal is to make a good Strategic Plan for 2025-2029. In the medium term, we have taken the year 2054 as a base. We need to create the horizon of our sectoral and spatial plans. In the long term, we need to dream a little. We will look at the course of the world and say that Izmir could be in this situation 50 years from now. Of course, we also want to talk about the 5-year progress in 50 years. This is our perspective,” he said.

“We will act with the awareness that we are part of the planet”
Prof. Dr. Renan Funda Barbaros gave information about the Izmir Gevrek Model, which aims to provide a compass for human welfare, and talked about how companies affiliated to the Metropolitan Municipality can integrate their activities into the new system. Prof. Dr. Barbaros said, “A 30-year perspective is put forward in planning and a 50-year perspective in vision. This is very important for Izmir. This is an effort to open new paths for future generations after us. I believe that the Metropolitan subsidiaries will take a leading role in the dissemination of the model to the business world. I think that new ideas and new paths will set an example for the business world and companies in other areas of the city. We want a new mentality for a better world, country and Izmir.”

Stating that within the scope of the new generation municipalism and this circular economy model to be implemented in Izmir, the understanding of “take-build-use-recycle” will come to the fore and nothing will be seen as waste, Barbaros said, “We will act with the awareness that we are part of the planet. We need to do something more radical to prevent multiple crises. We need to create better examples.”

“We need to make a difference”
Speaking at the closing of the meeting, Barış Karcı, Secretary General of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, stated that the new generation of municipalism does not postpone the old, on the contrary, it embraces it and said, “It is necessary to change the perspective and make a difference. There is energy in this institution and in the city to change things. There is expectation. Our president also provides support,” he said.

From Karsiyaka to Izmir
The model, which was launched for the first time in Turkey when Dr. Cemil Tugay, Mayor of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality, was Mayor of Karşıyaka Municipality, is spreading to İzmir with the Gevrek Economy Action Lab. The model is seen as a roadmap based on data, science and participation to tackle multiple crises. When introducing the model in the district where he was serving at the time, Mayor Tugay likened it to a “lifeline”. Tugay also said, “We are the biggest factor in the deterioration of the ecological balance. We are the reason for the extremes between summer and winter months, unstable atmospheric events, the loss of vitality of the soil, the change in the natural vegetation around us, and we have to find the solution.”