ground-rent surface. In the capitalist system, the main purpose of the capitalists is to gain profits by
investing in property in the city, where it provides the maximum returns. There are two ways of
maximizing returns. The first one is to open up unused land at low cost, and the other way is to redevelop
valuable land. Consequently, “newly developed and redeveloped areas attract residents with economic
and social resources. On the other hand, the poor are left behind the old and neglected areas with little new
investment” (Fong and Shibuya, 2000, p: 451).
Unevenness between the areas closely related to the economic division of labour. In a wider capitalist
economy, similarly, the development of an area relates to the underdevelopment of other area. As Massey
states, if these division of labour which are stretched out over space (spatial structure) consist of mutually
defining elements, then the functional and social characteristics of some areas define the functional and
social characteristics of other areas. “If one region has all the control functions, and only control functions,
then other regions must have all the functions which are controlled, the subordinated functions” (Massey,
1988: 252). In short, social and spatial differentiation in recent urban spaces can be understood within the
framework of uneven development in the historical process of capitalism. Therefore, in order to analyze or
explore the decline of an area in a city, it may necessary to conceptualize the problem within the dynamics of
uneven development.
Although the problem of urban decline has been occurred in the process of industrialization in first world
countries, this phenomenon is relatively new in Turkey as a developing country. In developed countries, the
concept of urban decline is widely studied and discussed in terms of its reasons and consequences. On the
other hand, there are limited research and literature regarding the appearance of declining areas, and more
specifically the physical and socio-economic problems of inner city residential areas in Turkey.
In Turkey, the process of urbanization of capital has begun particularly after 1980s leading to more
striking patterns of uneven development in urban areas on account of the increasing hegemony of capital.
Following the urbanization of capital and uneven development process, especially the major cities of the
country such as istanbul, Ankara and izmir, have experienced the urban decline phenomenon, which has
gradually been the reason of social and spatial deprivation of urban areas. Excessive accumulation of capital
by investments, on the one hand, has lead to development of new attractive areas within the city, and has left
the certain areas as unattractive and physically disinvested areas, on the other. In this respect, this paper
intends to explore the dimensions of social and spatial deprivation in the context of uneven development, in
the case of izmir-Tuzcu district.
COMMON FEATURES OF INNER CITY RESIDENTIAL DECLINE IN THE FIRST WORLD
COUNTRIES AND TURKEY
The phenomenon of inner city residential decline has several common dimensions such as economic,
physical, and social. More specifically, inner city decline can be characterized with poverty, unemployment,
segregation, declining public education and health, density rates of vacant and abandoned property,
changing land uses, and disinvestments.
Most of the studies reveal that concentration of poverty, economic and ethnic inequality has become an
important indicator of declining inner city neighborhoods (Carter, 2003: 18). Both in developed and
developing countries, poverty is common phenomenon that concentrates in any part of the city whether it is
core or periphery. As mentioned earlier, one of the reasons of concentration of poverty in inner
neighborhoods is the flight of middle-upper classes to newly developed areas in order to avoid ‘disamenities’
of the inner areas such as deteriorating housing and infrastructure, high density rates, and etc. Conditions of
housing market encourage, and also control this movement via presenting attractive living conditions out of
the inner city. Consequently, devaluated inner areas became the places of poorest groups that could not
afford the living in the other part of the urban areas (Carter, 2003).
In addition and in relation to the poverty, inner city residential areas have high level of unemployment.
According to the work of Myles et al (2000; cited in Carter, 2003: 19) - which analyses the changes in
neighborhood income inequality and residential economic segregation in the eight largest Canadian cities
during the 1980-95 period- while employment was increasingly concentrated in higher income communities,
in lower income neighborhoods unemployment has very significant rates. Regarding to this situation, Wilson
(1999; cited in Carter, 2003: 18) argues, “The consequences of high neighborhood joblessness are even more
devastating than those of high neighborhood poverty”. For Wilson (1999) the problems increase in the
neighborhoods related to unemployment, such as family dissolutions, lack of social participation, welfare,
and etc. On the other hand, high unemployment rates may results from the plant closing in a part of the city.
Spatial segregation based on racial and ethnic differences is the other fundamental subject of discussions
regarding to inner neighborhoods in developed countries. For instance, especially at the south side of the
Chicago, racial segregation is the dominant character of geographic distribution of the residents. More
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