“NO BALCONIES:” RICHARD MINITER reports on politics in Istanbul.

UPDATE: Claire Berlinski — InstaPundit’s Istanbul correspondent — emails:

Glenn, I see plenty of new buildings with balconies in Turkey. The big problem, obvious even to the casual observer, is that they’ve been built in great haste and on the cheap to meet skyrocketing demand for housing. Many of them have been built illegally or semi-legally. The Turkish Chamber of Commerce estimates that 65 percent of these new buildings have been constructed without a permit. Probably 40 percent don’t comply with earthquake safety regulations. When the earthquake comes, they’ll collapse, like they did in Izmir. The political fallout from the last quake was huge (17,000 people died, and the deaths were largely attributable to shoddy construction). If this happens in Istanbul, the army won’t have to step in to replace the AKP — they’ll be hanged by lynch mobs.

Ouch.