Social science literature on risk and disaster has acknowledged the socially constructed nature of disasters and their impacts; as probability of a disaster happening (risk) and disaster itself are not solely natural acts or acts of divine intervention, but rather disasters and responses to disasters are contingent upon socio-spatial processes and forms of (or lack of) political intervention (Beck, 1992, 2006). Therefore urban areas or buildings defined as “risky” and hence worthy of pre-emptive and reactive management, funding, and intervention involve power relations, both at in the phase of construction of the definition of risk and also generating solutions to it. This research builds on the body of literature that deals with spatial politics of risk-driven urban transformation (Gotham and Greenberg, 2014) and demonstrates that the likelihood of a disaster happening in Istanbul is used as a framework for urban transformation in the upper-middle income neighborhoods of Kadikoy district in Istanbul, a first-degree earthquake risk region. By rendering certain residential buildings “risky”, simultaneous demolition and reconstruction of buildings that are only few decades old are justified and supported by government subsidy for the private capital reinvestment in the built environment. This research, based on ethnographic fieldwork, studies historical and socio-spatial forces behind the earthquake risk-driven urban transformation in Istanbul that generates new investment opportunities through recycling risky buildings. Moreover, by focusing on class inequalities and their spatial manifestations in the city, this research examines the impacts of the transformation on the local community and what it reveals about class and employment relations in the urban setting.