Deprivation Analysis in Declining Inner City Residential Areas: A Case Study From Izmir, Turkey.

problem within the district. On the other hand the rest of the population complains about the problems
between neighbors that result from their children. The findings and deep interviews indicate that there is not
any serious grouping or tension based on ethnic or politic factors excepting the complaint of the old natives
of the district regarding to the new migrant residents in the district.

The participation to social institutions is another important indicator for social deprivation. This domain
seeks to examine institutional participation of the residents using the variables as ‘membership of any
institution or political party’, and ‘to vote in the last election’. While the membership of any institution or
political party is represented by a very low level, participation to the general election is very high.
Interestingly, that the rate of the participation to the last election is 86.2 percent. It indicates that individuals
have felt themselves within the system instead of being disintegrated. The effort of participating to the
election shows that they already have expectations from the government and from their futures.

Table 28: The Distribution of Residents According to the Membership of
Any Institution or Political Party - Voting in the Last Election

Recreational domain seeks to determine the activity level of the residents within the city, using the
variable as ‘activity at weekend or evenings’ and ‘places to visit within the city’. Findings show that 84.6
percent of the research population spend their time at home at the weekends and evenings. Besides 9.2
percent of them visits their neighbors, and 6.3 percent of them visits their relatives. On the other hand, 52.3
percent of the research population does not go to any places within the city; 36.9 percent of them could visit
nearby surroundings as Kemeralti and Konak; finally 10.8 percent of them rarely visit their relatives in
different parts of the city. As expectedly, most of the population is not mobile within the city because of
their economic limitations. This is an important indicator for deprivation of the population in terms of
recreational mobility.

Poor health is another important measure of deprivation; because illness reduces the people’s quality of
life. While there are diseases independent from the living conditions of the people, some diseases may be
triggered due to the unhealthy living conditions. Therefore, the health problem of the research population is
examined in addition to the utilization from health services and ownership of social - health insurance.

While the 49.2 percent of the research population have not any health problem, the rest of them suffer at
least one of the diseases as listed the table 29 below. 13.9 percent of the households suffer from the general
disease such as stomach, internal disease, and unidentified illnesses. On the other hand, 12.3 percent of the
persons suffer from the heart and tension problems. Most of the people within this group stated that they
could not get the required medicine permanently they use because of the lack of social insurance, or at least
green card.

able 29: The Distribution of Health Problems in Households

Considering the distribution of the ownership of social or health insurance, it is conspicuous that the
50.8 percent of the research population have not any type of insurance. This is a very clear indicator for the
health deprivation of the population. Regarding that the interviews have been done with the parents
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