Urban poverty in Turkey

'Urban Poverty in Turkey: Development and Modernisation in Low-Income Communities' by Burcu Şentürk (IB Tauris, 196 pages, £64)

The issue of urbanization provides a rich window to explore Turkey's modern history. Chaotic transformations in urban demographics are at the center of broader shifts in Turkish politics and society. Starting in the 1950s, there was a steady rise of people building "gecekondu" slum homes on the urban periphery. Gecekondu dwellers comprised 4.7 percent of Turkey's urban population in 1955, 16.4 percent in 1960, 22.9 percent in 1965, 26.1 percent in 1980, and 35 percent in 1995. By the first half of the 1960s, 59 percent of the capital Ankara's population and 45 percent of Istanbul's population lived in gecekondus.

For her research for "Urban Poverty in Turkey," Ege University academic Burcu Şentürk spent years living in the Ege area of Ankara's Mamak district, giving her a unique insight into these changes. Her book is a rewarding exploration of Turkey's wrenching economic, political and social shifts through close study of a single gecekondu neighborhood in Ankara over decades of change.

Migrants first started moving to Ege in the 1960s, mostly from rural parts of the nearby provinces of Çorum, Yozgat and Sivas. The early settlers built their homes overnight and defended them from municipal bulldozers. Conditions were very tough: There was no electricity, water or sewerage, nor were there proper roads or public transport into the city center.

This struggle for infrastructure was formative for the community. Locals cooperated for the improvement of Ege throughout the 1960s and 70s to secure their existence in the city. The link between Ege residents and left-wing groups was strong. Leftist...