The Unprepared Burst of Urbanization & its Underserved Costly Consequences
Have you seen the film in which Munir Ozkul, Adile Nasit, Zeki Alasya and Kemal Sunal play the villagers who immigrate to Istanbul in order to find the gold lying underneath the ground? Most probably all of you have seen it. The film was made approximately 20 years ago, as you remember, and it depicted the rail stations full of immigrants including the main characters. It was a long time ago. However, the phenomenon of uncontrolled urbanization, that is, masses of people migrating to urban areas continually has been a big problem until present day. It is obvious that people are still migrating to big cities in masses, but is it known what forces them to leave their hometowns behind and occupy a new city where they are strangers? There are several reasons why people migrate to urban areas, and there are many problems that uncontrolled urbanization results in.
As the technology develops day by day, the world becomes a different place than we used to live in. The appearance of machines used in agriculture in Anatolian villages absolutely changed the life in these rural areas, since using machines decreased the demand for human power in agricultural activities. In other words, people started to use machines, instead of paying villagers for doing their work. As a result, the number of the employed decreased considerably, whereas the unemployment rate increased clearly because of the lack of job opportunities. The absence has led to migration of unemployed villagers.
When a man dies, traditionally the land he has owned is divided into smaller plots and his children or other relatives inherit it. If this rule is repeatedly applied, the size of the land becomes so small that the heir cannot make a living by using it; i.e. the land shrinks steadily while it is being inherited and it gets impossible for a family to survive on it. Therefore, the poor family migrates to the big city in the hopes of a better life.
Better services being present in big cities is also a pull factor for the immigrants. Most of the well-known schools are founded in big cities. Moreover, the hospitals specialized in certain medical fields and important government departments are all located in big cities. Furthermore, there are many organizations in arts, sports, etc. As a result, the citizens who look for better education, medical treatment and for social life find themselves in these cities.
Mass migration results in various problems in urban areas. The most important of these, as it is obviously the origin of others, is overpopulation. Overpopulation is having too many people for the limited amount of food, materials and space available in a city. While the big cities are getting overpopulated, agricultural production decreases. The decrease has an impact on the prices of agricultural products causing them to rise. In other words, the fewer people live in the rural areas, the more we have to pay for the agricultural products.
When a city is over populated, it means that there are too many people for the amount of space available. In big cities, such as Istanbul, the land that the cities are established on has already gotten full with houses, apartments, roads, and etc. so they have started
