Review by Choice Review
In 1995 it is estimated that Turkey will have a population of 60 million, of which 40 million will live in urban areas. Approximately 20 million people will inhabit the three urban conglomerates of Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. The authors focus on how a developing country like Turkey can cope and manage this urbanization-migration phenomenon. Danielson and Keles's major criticism is that urban planning and politics have been too centralized-dominated by the central government, frequently by the military. They plead for more local-urban control of the cities. They realize that the central government's involvement is necessary, especially as new urban populations of 300,000 to 500,000 are quickly created as satellite cities adjacent to the older and existing urban metropolises. The conclusion drawn is that Turkey's modernization-urbanization processes have been mixed, at best, but sufficiently successful to have prevented revolution (by means of military authoritarianism) from the left or from the right. Politically, this suggests that Turkey's urbanization-migration processes have been somewhat successful, even if haphazard. This is a very readable book considering the topic, and it offers information on a subject and country on which little is available. For this reason alone the book should be purchased by most academic libraries serving upper-division and graduate students and by public libraries with mature readers.-R.W. Olson, University of Kentucky
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
