Having suggested that Turkey’s rapid economic growth has (ironically) contributed to anti-Erdogan anger, I was delighted to read a new Bloomberg Businessweek article by Sarah Topol, Benjamin Harvey, and Selcan Hacaoglu on the social and political consequences of Erdogan’s economic revolution. As the country upgrades its infrastructure, the secular urban middle class, which has profited mightily from the economic boom, grows more resentful of Erdogan’s authoritarianism, particularly as it relates to the transformation of Turkey’s built environment.

“There’s been a steady drumbeat of projects and actions, especially dealing with Istanbul, that have made the secular middle class of Turkish society upset,” says Hugh Pope, the Turkey analyst for the International Crisis Group in Istanbul. An urban renewal project near Taksim will tear down a historic neighborhood to make room for luxury apartments and a shopping mall. Construction of a third international airport, projected to be the largest in Europe with a price tag of $29 billion, was approved on May 3. On May 29, Erdoğan broke ground on a third bridge over the Bosphorus connecting the European and Asian sides of the city. Despite opposition from environmental groups, the bridge project will cut a superhighway through a forest near Istanbul. The bridge has been named the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, after an Ottoman sultan whose 16th century reign is known for expanding the Ottoman Empire and massacring the Alevis, a religious minority whom the Turkish Sunnis did not consider true Muslims. The bridge’s dedication has prompted controversy over Erdoğan’s perceived disregard for people who do not belong to his conservative, pious Sunni voting base.

The concern is not entirely aesthetic. To some degrees it reflects status anxiety — what do Erdogan’s various projects say about the groups he does and does not respect? Now that inflation has been tamed and GDP per capita has surpassed the $10,000 mark and Turkey remains Europe’s fastest-growing economy, it is questions of this kind that come to the fore.