Housing problem in Ankara during urbanization

The subject of our study is the issue of housing in Ankara entering the process of a rapid urbanization after its declaration as the Capital city of Turkey in October 13, 1923. The process of urbanization of Ankara has picked up speed due to its being the center of the state rather than the developments in the field of trade and industry in the first quarter of the 20th century. It has been wished that Ankara, which is the Capital city of the new Turkish Republic, would enter into a rapid and planned course of development with the support and assistance of the state. With this aim, in order to have a healthy and organized development in the city, contests have been run and plans have been prepared. In 1924 and 1925 the first attempts of the plans for Ankara has been prepared by Dr. Carl Ch. Locker; however, only the part concerning Newcity/Yenişehir of this plan has been applied. After this, Hermann Jansen?s plan which won first prize in 1928 has been applied in the Capital city. Jansen?s plan which includes air corridors and green areas has been interfered; the desired results have not been reached due to lack of economic resources and property speculations. In 1957 the plan put forward by Turkish architects Nihat Yücel and Raşit Uybadin has been put into practice. Finally, The Bureau of Ankara Metropolitan Area Main City Plan (AMANPB) has prepared ?Ankara 1990 Main City Plan? embracing a period of twenty years as a result of the detailed reseaches between 1970 and 1975, and this plan which is in a metropolitan scale has been accepted and put into effect.Housing standard constitutes one of the main components of the humanitarian development index. Housing problem which is as old as the history of mankind is very versatile and variable. At the same time housing which is the essential requirement of sheltering, protection, living in comfort and welfare, enters the interest area of economists in terms of investment vehicle and merchandise as well as architects, engineers, and city and area planners with its city planning, arrangement, aesthetic and construction qualities. In many countries the space dimension of the source use and expansion problems has been brought in the foreground because of the rapid urbanization process and the condensation of social and economic life in cities. In the last fifty years city economy has started to develop in economics. In this respect in our study the number, quality and cost of the houses built in Ankara have been presented.Housing problem which caused its existence to have been perceived since the declaration of the Republic until now has been discussed within the framework of the history of Ankara, the fact of urbanization and slum problems, and has been evaluated by making use of the sources relating the topic. Another housing type is slums which are arisen from internal migration and population movement as well as rapid and distorted urbanization in Ankara as in many cities. In the early years in which the methods such as property and construction cooperatives, social housing, house loans have not solved the problems, the new dwellers having low incomes have tried to meet their needs of housing by building slums illegally on the hills surrounding Ankara, and this has destroyed the structure of the city. In recent years it has been tried to end the existence of slums in Ankara through the projects of urban transformation. Urban transformation projects are attempts which should be taken positively as long as they are applied directly, do not destroy the historical structure, and do not give way to ugly and unplanned concretions.However, in Turkey urbanization or modernization has been perceived as an unhealthy concretion. Modernization has frequently been interpreted as building apartment blocks, making vehicles move under ground and over bridges, unplanned housing and urbanization devoid of style. Within the framework of the legislation made during the attempts of meeting the housing deficit in Ankara, many mistakes have been made besides the positive developments when aiming at modernization with the means provided by the state. As in many allocation unit in Turkey, historical richnesses have not been protected for the sake of modernization at the desired level. In our thesis these issues have been discussed in detail.