Istanbul Receives A Non-stop Flow of Migrants
The rate of migration for Istanbul has more than doubled during the 2009-2010 period due to the city’s economic opportunities and income disparities between the country’s west and east, according to official statistics. Experts’ opinions however diverge regarding possible effects of urban projects, such as the construction of a third Bosphorus bridge, adding two new cities to Istanbul and the Istanbul Canal, could have on net migration rates in Istanbul.
“An increase in Istanbul’s positive net migration rates with the implementation of the planned projects is inevitable,” the chairman of Istanbul’s City Planners Chamber, Tayfun Kahraman, told the Hürriyet Daily News, in a phone interview on Tuesday, adding that he expected the rates of migration to Istanbul to increase even more.
Istanbul received a net of more than 102,500 migrants during 2009-2010, which counts for 7.77 percent of Istanbul’s population during the same period, compared to a net of about 39,500 migrants during 2008-2009, which counted for only 3.06 percent of the population at that period, according to data by the Address-Based Population Registration System, or ADNKS.
“Considering only the migration into provinces does not constitute a sufficient indicator. We must look at the migration out of the province as well, for an accurate evaluation,” TÜİK’s Istanbul regional director, Zeki Bostancı, told the Daily News on Monday. “The statistics by ADNKS clearly show there has been an increase in net migration to Istanbul,” Bostancı said, adding that the reasons for such an increase had to be analyzed separately, refusing to comment any further.
There is no single reason explaining the increase in net immigration rates into Istanbul, according to Kenan Çayır, an associate professor at Istanbul Bilgi Unviersity. “The chances of receiving better education and healthcare services in Istanbul are greater, compared to other provinces. There are also a serious number of people moving to Istanbul due to terror in their own cities,” Çayır told the Daily News in an interview on Tuesday.
Should the urban projects for Istanbul recently revealed by the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, start being implemented, the regions surrounding Istanbul will become more attractive for new migration, Çayır said, adding that he did not believe too many people would prefer being transferred from the center to Istanbul’s periphery.
“People have their lives, stories and networks attached to the place where they live, which they would not easily detach from,” he said, adding that such a scenario seemed difficult and improbable.
While agreeing that the major drivers of increasing net immigration into Istanbul are economic factors, city sociologist Murat Gülen said urban mega-projects for Istanbul would mostly drive Istanbul residents to move from the center to the periphery, rather than people from outside into the city.
“The population in Istanbul’s center is very dense. These projects will give way to intra-metropolitan mobility,” said Gülen, who is also a professor and director of the Center for City Research at Istanbul Şehir University.
Recalling that it would take about a decade to notice the effect of urban mega-projects on migration into and out of Istanbul, Gülen said the Marmaray project, which will bring a railway system underneath the Bosphorus Strait, would greatly help people to move to peripheries more easily, by relieving transportation between Istanbul’s Anatolian and European sides.
Regarding the net migration into the city during the 2009-2010, Gülen said 100,000 migrants was a high figure for a city with a population of about 13 million. He said however that migrants were essential for maintaining the dynamics in Istanbul’s labor markets. “Istanbul’s birth rate is extremely low,” he said, adding that migrants contributed to its growth as well. “This is an inevitable phenomenon. Any metropolis overall the globe attracts migrants.”
May 17, 2011
SOURCE: Hürriyet Daily News
