What are the Social, Physical and Economic Problems of Slums and their Expectations from the Urban City?

The mechanization of agriculture in Turkey as of 1950s brought about considerable unemployment in the labour force, as a result of which Turkey experienced an accelerated immigration movement from rural to urban areas. The inadequate number of dwellings and the insufficient income of this section migrating from rural to urban areas to acquire a dwelling of their own played a key role in the unplanned urbanization. This research was conducted with the aim of acquainting with prevailing social, economic and physical conditions in slum areas where Ankara experiences substantial increase in squatting. Through interviews carried out with slum dwellers, being characterized as people living away from urban culture due to the general stereotype, their expectations from the urban city and approaches to urban transformation was inquired. In the scope of this study, slums and slum policy; urban transformation and urban transformation processes in Turkey were primarily explained in a conceptual manner and then a fieldwork was performed. As a result of surveys and interviews conducted in Yalçınkaya Quarter where fieldwork was also realized, social, physical and economic problems of slums as well as their expectations from the urban city were identified. The assessments in this respect revealed that shantytowns display a transitional characteristic between rural and urban areas and they are on the horns of dilemma as they possess neither an urban nor a rural lifestyle. The study conducted in Yalçınkaya Quarter revealed the urban poverty once again; however, meeting with people striving to hold on and struggle for life in the quarter where a sort of depression area was expected to be found in ethnical aspects is of high importance in terms of demonstrating the efforts of these people for maintaining their relations with the city regardless of existing social, physical and economical problems