Since the Gezi Park incident, I have started to differentiate between rural and urban people when thinking about world affairs.

The other day I was waiting my turn in a clinic. The registrar lady checking my ID card said, “I guess you were a homebirth baby.” At first, I did not understand what she meant. Then she noted the birth date, “I guess this is not your real date of birth. It is the formal one.” Finally she said, “It was like this in the old times,” reminding me of the fact that I was getting old. Probably that’s why I asked my parents last bayram why I had been born at home.

True, I was a homebirth baby. I was born in the early 1960s in a house in Şeyh Kurnevi Quarter, Pınarbaşı District, Bursa. My mother was under medical supervision throughout the pregnancy, but chose to give birth at home although they had been city people for three generations. Today, more than 90 percent of the births in Turkey take place in hospitals. But this was not the case back when I was born. Homebirth was more prevalent. I would like to share my views on what this means.

Since the Gezi Park incident, I have started to differentiate between rural people and urban people when thinking about world affairs. I believe that the growth of urban young professionals has strengthened Turkish democracy. For the first time in the twenty-first century the urban population has surpassed the rural. When I was born, around 30 percent of Turkey’s population lived in urban areas. Today the rate has exceeded 75 percent. Turkey enjoyed rapid growth thanks to the rural to urban migration. At the heart of rapid growth was the productivity gain resulting from immigration. The slowdown in productivity gain since 2009 is closely related to the slowdown in rural to urban migration. It seems like Turkey’s cities have feathered their nests. But to what degree did Turkey’s cities become more urban meanwhile? I believe that being an urbanite is something different from living in an urban area. It should imply an improvement in the quality of life, the level of skills. It should rapidly expand the skills set in people’s minds.

I have been thinking about the concrete indicators to assess the urbanization process of Turkey’s cities. The rise in hospital births is one, for instance. I do not know what the homebirth-hospital birth distribution was in the early 1960s. The Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies releases a quinquannial survey that includes a question on the place of delivery, among others. The survey was first published in 1993 and the latest survey available is for 2008. The 2013 survey will be released by the end of the year. According to the survey results, the rate of hospital babies increased from 73 percent in 1993 to 94 percent in 2008 in urban areas. The increase was around 21 basis points. In other words, the ratio of homebirth babies in urban areas decreased from around 30 percent in 1993 to 6 percent in 2008. Over the same timeframe, the ratio of hospital-birth babies doubled in rural areas from 40 percent to 80 percent. Overall in Turkey, 9 of every 10 babies are born in hospitals.

This transition has also changed the list of needs for delivery. In 1993, two-thirds of all deliveries were attended by nurses or midwives, while this rate is one-fourth today. In the past, all they could demand was more nurses or midwives. Today, as the rate of hospital-born babies is increasing, they can demand better-quality healthcare services. As opportunities grow, so does the list of needs. Turkey’s politicians have to realize this change.

By the way, I have to admit that on our way to the local elections, I am very happy that our administrators, prime minister Erdoğan to begin with, are pointing at the need for a city park. How has New York been able to preserve Central Park at the center of Manhattan for more than a century? It has been thanks to the ballot box. Why is it that in Turkey the ballot box serves only to distributing unearned rent? If you ask me, the urbanization of the rural population and list of needs that has been prolonged as a result ultimately have ensured that the ballot box serves to construct parks instead of distributing unearned rent. I believe that Turkey has finally made a good start.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 16.08.2013