As recent as 2011 I took pictures of the gecekondular around the citadel-hill: other hills, covered with houses that were built illegally, but having been build fell under the protection of some law (something like "a house is a castle,once it has a roof") and remained in place for tens of years. But in 2014 a destruction that I earlier saw going on further from the central part of this huge city (whole hills with just rubble, here and there a lone mosque that was spared), and that was usually quickly followed by the building olf high-rising housing blocks) had reached the immediate vicinity of the hill that has the Kale (citadel) on its top.