RENTAL HOUSING ACCESSIBILITY IN IZMIR, TURKEY AN ANALYTICAL ANALYSIS BETWEEN 2019 AND 2023

• Published in: Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 68 - 87
• Main Author: ERDEM, Umut
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bucharest Research Center in Public Administration and Public Services 01.02.2025; Academia de Studii Economice Bucuresti; Research Centre in Public Administration & Public Services
• Subjects: Affordable housing; Budgets; Cities; Cost control; Economic aspects; Economic crisis; Forecasts and trends; Homeowners; Housing; Housing needs; Housing policy; Housing prices; Income; Income inequality; Industrialized nations; Low income groups; Metropolitan areas; Neighborhoods; Neoliberalism; Prices and rates; Private sector; Public sector; Rental housing; Rentals; Social structure; Urban areas; Turkey
• ISSN: 2065-3913; 2065-3921

Factors like migration lead to over-concentration of the population in urban areas which fosters housing prices and leads to harder budget management for low- and middle-income groups to meet their shelter needs. In cities around the world affordable rental housing is a policy tool developed for low- and middle-income groups to allocate 30% of their budget to rent and continue their lives without reducing their nutritional and social needs. However, since the global neoliberal housing policy with high inflation rates and economic crises, access to affordable rental houses is getting harder, especially in cities from Türkiye. In this regard, this paper analytically investigates the housing affordability spatially in the city of İzmir from 2019 to 2023 yearly for 13 districts (metropolitan area) and 490 neighborhoods. The results show that low-income groups (I. %20 income group) in the İzmir metropolitan area cannot access affordable rental housing. II. %20 income group can access only 24 of 490 neighborhoods to affordable rental housing and for III. %20 income group it is 57. The number of neighborhoods with affordable rental housing declines from 2019 to 2023 for all %20 income groups.