Housing crisis is a matter of governance and not funding, city leaders tell World Urban Forum

Published on

25/05/2026 - 13:56 GMT+2

The biggest obstacle to housing production is not money but the breakdown in communication between local and central governments, the mayor of Turkey's sixth-largest city told Euronews at the World Urban Forum in Baku.

"What we see in other cities is actually the most important obstacle in the face of housing production, not the financial problem, but the communication problem between the central government and the local administration," said Uğur İbrahim Altay, mayor of Konya and Executive President of the United Cities and Local Governments network.

Altay said housing built without integration into the wider city fails its residents. "We have to produce integrated housing with the city, not isolated," Altay said.