declining neighborhoods may be low quality in terms of educational, physical, infrastructural equipments.
For example, lack of heating system, labs with no equipment, fiscal shortages, and so on. As suggested by
Carter (2003) school populations may reflect the population of the neighborhood in which the schools are
located. Therefore, educational equipments of a community, such as physical conditions of schools, quality
of the personnel, and the success of the school, may give an important signs of this community situation
whether decline or not.
Another important issue in declining inner city neighborhoods is that it may not utilize enough public
health services. It is clear that there is a strong relationship between socioeconomic status and health. The
reason of this problem can change according to the local characteristics. For example, some neighborhoods
may have not a primary health units or services. On the other hand some neighborhoods have health clinic
but not equipped by the required material or personnel. As Wasylenki (2001) states, poverty has been shown
to be a cause of poor health and also limits access to both preventive and remedial health care. It is suggested
by Kennedy et al., (1998; cited in Wasylenki, 2001) that in the United States there is a strong correlations
between lower income and higher mortality, as being independent of ethnic origin. The health conditions of
residents in inner neighborhoods have been discussed in terms of concentration certain disease such as
violence, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and HIV infection. Furthermore, some people live with chronic
illnesses such as tuberculosis, asthma and diabetes. The distribution of health opportunities as well as the
distribution of income is unequal in large cities.
As the common features of inner city residential decline; poverty, unemployment, declining public
education and health, density rates of vacant and abandoned property, changing land uses, and
disinvestments can be accepted as similar problems for Turkish cities. As a developing country, Turkey has
experienced similar transformations in urban areas especially in metropolitan cities such as istanbul, Ankara
and izmir. §engül (2001) divides three period of the urbanization process in Turkey regarding the political
and economic shifts after the republic. The first period is characterized as urbanization of government as a
nation state between 1923-1950, the second period is characterized as urbanization of labour between 1950-
1980, and finally the third period is characterized as urbanization of capital after 1980s. As the third period,
the process of urbanization of capital in Turkey had begun particularly at 1980s. This continuing period has
more striking patterns of uneven development in urban areas, because of the increasing hegemony of capital
on urbanization process. It is certain that the capital had inevitably been one of the main diagnostic elements
of initial urbanization process in Turkey. However, urban spaces have experienced radical changes with the
increasing dominance of capital after 1980s. As Ataay (2001) states, Turkey had articulated world industry
by exporting goods based on the intensive labour, and raw material; and increased the economic relations
with capitalist countries by means of foreign investments especially at the beginning of the 1990s. At the
same time, most of the investment was directed to urban areas and encouraged by the government especially
in infrastructure, transportation, and housing sectors. Since most of these investments were awarded to
private sector, urban investments had become the means of transferring source to the capital. Consequently,
urban areas had become important places for large-scale capital, and increased the investments also in built
environment in order to profit from urban rant. Especially at the beginning of 1990s, both domestic and
foreign large-scale capital begun to occupy urban areas by the investments in hypermarkets and
supermarkets, hotels, and holdings (Sengül, 2001). While these developments particularly in metropolitan
cities, have directed urban development from the centers to the suburbs, central areas have begun to lose
their attractiveness in contrast to the newly developed areas. In short, urban development patterns begun to
transform from mono-centered to multi-centered form via developing new sub-centers, based on the uneven
distribution of capital and investments through the built environment in Turkey.
The phenomenon of inner city decline is relatively new for Turkey as a developing country. However, it
is more observable in the largest cities of Turkey, where capital accumulated mostly. One of the most
important reasons of this development is the attractiveness of these cities for rural population originated from
the east regions. Regional unevenness in terms of capital investment and public services had forced the
populations in the east regions to move the largest cities where the capital and wider employment
opportunities exist. As a result of this movement, population of largest cities have became more segregated
especially based on the income structures.
In conclusion, there is not enough reference explaining the general features of it. Existing literature
consisting the works by Isik (1999), Giritlioglu et al. (1993), Ergun (1995), Sonmez, 2001, Güler (1990) may
give several crucial points about this phenomenon in major cities of Turkey. Isik (1999) states that, instead of
racial or ethnic determinants, income inequality is main determinant of the residential segregation in Turkish
cities. Similarly, other studies mentioned above, argue that concentration of poverty is the main characteristic
of declining areas instead of ethnic or racial segregation. On the other hand, these studies emhasize that
unemployment and bad physical conditions are most striking general features of declining inner city
residential areas in Turkish cities.