Page 159 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 1

Dalya Hazar Kalonya

of the headmen interviewed in Torbalı stated that there was a decrease in
village populations as young people move to Torbalı district center for better
job opportunities. The headmen interviewed in Aliağa stated that 59% of the
young people have moved to city center, causing a decrease in the village
population.
Additionally, there are city-dwellers in all three districts who move to
villages for secondary residence, summer house, hobby gardens etc. (Figure
8). This shows that there is also a reverse migration wave from urban to rural
areas, changing the user profile in the rural areas, which poses the risk of
“rural gentrification”. Rural gentrification is known as the non-farming urban
population replacing the agricultural producer population, and the ensuing
decrease in agricultural activities and the increase in the use of summer
houses, secondary residences, hobby gardens, tourism, etc. (Uysal and
Sakarya, 2018). COVID-19 pandemic, which has become the leading current
issue in recent years, seems to have intensified this tendency towards reverse
migration from urban to rural areas, and increased prices of residences and
lands in rural areas.

Figure 8: The invasion of pastures by residences, Eğridere
Village, Bornova (Personal Archive, 2017)

The reactive resistance to enclosures of rural commons are discussed as
environmental movements and commoning practices (Hazar Kalonya, 2021).
A case in point is the pasture resistance that took place in Torbalı, Göllüce
Village in 2016 (Figure 9-10).

144 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate,