Fonksiyonel bölge ışığında Türkiye'deki bölge anlayışına dair bir değerlendirme

Cities and regions are evolving primarily as a result of population increase. Thus, they need more complicated approaches and more functional solutions for the development process. In this respect, the functional region approach promises sustained socio-economic development with its well-designed principles. Principles of the approach are easy to adopt and flexible to practice in any region. Conversely, Turkey adopts an approach resulted from the EU harmonization process. In this approach, regions of the country are defined by NUTS2 regions formed only according to distance although Turkey needs an approach that considers socio-economic development because of its heterogeneous structure. This study aims to clarify that the region approach of Turkey cannot succeed in sustaining regional development, ensuring aim-practice consistency and dealing with current challenges of regions. In this respect, the law of the current approach, socio-economic development levels of regions and changes in population, employment and unemployment rates, migration velocity, net migration and gross national product per capita are evaluated. Also, the thesis advocates the functional region approach provides a reasoned framework to investigate and manage the regions of Turkey. In parallel to this, the background, structure and principles of the approach are defined and examined.