Author(s)

F. Akpınar, G. Başaran

Abstract

At the turn of the 1980s, Turkey’s economic policy went through a radical transformation by adopting new liberal economy based on exports versus the import substitution policy. During the 1980s, liberalisation and privatisation policies led to the withdrawal of the public subvention mechanism to the agricultural sector that caused rapid immigration to the urban areas and abandonment of the agricultural land. No doubt about it, rural areas in the vicinity of the metropolitan cities, are affected the most adversely as the consequence of the attempts, and encouraged the expansion and suburbanization. On the other hand the new jurisdiction on rural areas, the Law of 6360 (2012) has been the turning point in the Municipal Administrative Structure in Turkey. The law has extended the city boundaries along with the provincial areas including villages and mid-sized provincial districts found in the metropolitan areas. The law abolished all the villages’ rural status and converted them to the ordinary neighborhoods of the central metropolitan city. Within these circumstances, the objective of the study is to discuss the possible effects of the new jurisdiction on the rural areas in the planning process.

Keywords

urban–rural interaction, rural index, spatial planning of rural areas