Cruising towards growth: Redefining public benefit through privatized transport infrastructure

Transport infrastructures, traditionally public assets, are privatized globally through urban development projects that serve growth-oriented agendas. The article explores how policymakers in Turkey legally and discursively redefined ‘public benefit’ to justify accelerated privatization and centralized urban policymaking. İstanbul’s first cruise port illustrates how a waterfront redevelopment project transformed an idle transport infrastructure into a tourism enclave serving the interests of the urban growth machine. Drawing on legislation, parliamentary minutes and panel discussions, we trace two key dynamics. First, the introduction of the ‘cruise port’ category to Turkish conservation legislation expanded the definition of public infrastructure to include commercial land uses. Second, planning powers were centralized under the Privatization Administration, reforming urban governance to align with investor priorities while eroding democratic and conservationist checks. We argue that infrastructures act as political technologies that recast private accumulation as public benefit, echoing global patterns of growth-led urbanism.