What is not there to say about İstanbul—the intersection between Orient and Occident, the capital of two successive great empires and a republic turning into an empire of its own right, the seat and abode of countless generations of great statesmen, inspired artists, wise scholars, and more? Yet that is but one side of the place once known as the City of Man's Desire. As the Ottoman sultans, slowly declining away from their ancestors' prowess, withered to decadence and sheltered themselves in their palaces, the perception of the city changed.

By the time Entente troops arrived at the end of the Great War, İstanbul had already been known as a land of elitism, lavishness, and arrogance—a situation that rendered it unfit to serve as a capital for the new Turkish state. Today İstanbul, Turkey's capital of commerce and culture, unwillingly plays second fiddle to Ankara. However, its decline is only in standing; as a centre of business and an economic lodestone, it continues to grow.