CRIME IN BIG CITIES

Sociologists and the government have been observing crime rates in big
cities increase and they are devoted to solving the problem by comprehending
its cause-effect chain even if it seems to be in a more complex pattern than a
chain. After having had the Marshall assistance in 1951 and having started
using agrimotors in farming, farmers did not need labor force anymore in rural
areas in Turkey. Consequently, laborers, most of whose hopes turned out to be
being hired in big companies, migrated from rural areas to big cities and
distribution of population in Turkey considerably changed. This variance in big
cities was so uncontrolled that many migrants became unemployed and
homeless. Crime rates in big cities, therefore, have increased rapidly. This
cause-effect chain is explicit enough to interpret the reasons of crime in big
cities, but it is also beneficial to state minor reasons, which can be separated as
social, economical and psychological.

The reason why crime rates in big cities increased in the last fifty years can
easily be determined if social factors are considered primarily. Otherwise, one
of the most crucial factors would be omitted and other factors would be
inadequate to state the problem. Research conducted by social psychologists
working on the slum areas with high rate of crime, indicates that people who
committed crimes are also the ones who had not gotten the chance to go to a
school or had not had the educational opportunities in school, which makes us
interpret that lack of education debars children from mental health and
morality, the lack of which results in a tendency to commit a crime. Another
social factor that crime rates stem from is crime culture reinforced by media,
which lets violence and crime seem as if they were ethically normal whether
they promote it or not. Watching TV series and movies, hearing and reading
news that contains crime, people in big cities normalize and tend to commit it.
(9)

While comprehending the reasons of crime in big cities, authorities also

consider economic factors, which also constituted the migration from rural to
urban areas. Having become unemployed in farms and ranches in rural areas,
people migrated to urban areas in order to find jobs and this change created an
economic conflict in cities. Since migrating to big cities, indigent people
constructed slums, sustaining their lives there but these slums created such
insecure ghettos that crime rates are concentrated on those areas if the
government or non-governmental organizations had not taken a step to avoid
the discrepancy between the standards of living of the rich and the poor.
Research done by Turkish Economists Union shows that robbery and seizure
would not have arisen in big cities if the government had provided jobs for all
those having migrated to big cities and controlled the expansion of slums or
reinforced the houses there. Not having been educated well and earned
enough money to live, people in big cities affect others who migrate after them
and create a criminal history there.

In addition to struggling with social and economic problems, migrants also

have difficulty getting their mental health controlled as an outcome of former
problems. For instance, if the income gap between poor and rich did not exist,
people from all castes would communicate and understand each other better;
so, the prejudice or biased opinion would not exist. While elite is proponent of
sustaining their lifestyles so the current economic policies, substratum is
opponent of what is going on for most of the time. By not communicating
healthily, people forget to wish they could understand each other, and they
even wish they could show their obsessive feelings of revenge by committing
crime.

To sum up, social psychologists and the government are determined to

state the factors, which are specified as social, economic and psychological
factors and which cause crime in big cities, before solving the crime problem.
All people need to be educated in terms of morality and mental health. Had
they received the education in their childhood, they would not normalize crime
they witness or see. In addition to the social problems, people in big cities, who
wish they had gotten a job and a good life in those big cities, struggle with
economic problems which lead them to steal or extort. As a conclusion of
economic problems, a biased opinion is constituted towards elite by low class
people, but it is expected that elite would help poor people. This class,
however, constitutes also a biased opinion towards working class and tries
sustaining their lives. So, we should carefully state the facts that lead to crime
and be aware of the working class struggling with those problems.
The Reasons of High Crime Rates In Large Cities

While scientific and technical advances make people think that world will be
more meaningful, the increasing incidence of crime destroys the validity of this
view. Specifically, big cities are such the pivot of enhancements in every
domain and violence that this contradiction contributes to trigger the growth
of chaos if the reasons of this contrast is not revealed. Therefore, the studies
about the issue is still ongoing, and the facts which are based on some relevant
research indicate that the violence in big cities stems from incordination and
change of values.

One cause of the violence is the incordination in big cities, namely, lack of
authority. While the large cities have already had excessive and heterogenous
inhabitants which cause the difficulty to administrate the society fairly, they
have gradually provided favorouble opportunities for countryman. Besides the
opportunities which are created by the urban life, industrilization has
accelerated the immigration from the rural areas to the urban ones. Thus, it led
to two main problems. One of this is the existence of low utility despite large
population. Immigrants have not been able to reach the same opportunities as
local inhabitants have. This issue and the culture that immigrants have carried
from the rural areas have led to the second problem; that is to say, adaptation
problems. Owing to these, immigrants felt the presence of sense of belonging.
To sociologists, it was the one of the biggest problem of immigration because
they could not create new identities for the urban life. Thus, they want to
create a meaning for their lives and react the injustice. Correspondingly, the
local inhabitants have reacted the immigrants negatively. Consequently, the
ratio of crime in big cities to the ones in countries increased remarkably.

Another reason have derived from change of values. Firstly, industrialization

have transformed the society from traditional communities into modern ones.
Secondly, apart industrialization, technology have revolutionized the
perception of value. People have regarded their lives as an independent
individual instead of a part of a society. It has resulted in weakening of the
sense of empathy. Lack of empathy has contributed to the ignorance of others.
Thus, the high rate of violance have emerged inevitably. The significant point of
the issue is that since the effects of industrialization and technology have been
reflected in big cities more easily, the crime in these areas expanded relatively
more. Especially, this problem have been able to be observed in young
members of society. Due to the fact that they are devoid of experience and try
to identify themselves, they could not assess the ideas and phenomena
properly, thereby it have led to corruption of youth. As a result, the crime rates
have increased considerably in big cities.

To sum up, immigrants could not reach the similar utilities as the local people
could. Additionally, they could not adapt the new environment. Therefore, the
differences between those people led to a conflict. Moreover, industrialization
and technology affected the values. Specifically, young population have been
influenced by this change negatively. In conclusion, incoordination which
derives from the conflict between immigrants and local people, and change of
values haved caused the rise of high crime rates in big cities.
The Increasing Demand for the Internet

Modern world has offerred an amazing assistant for us, namely internet,
which helps us in almost every domain, and makes everything faster than we
do. Thus, we have initially liked it, and subsequently we have depended on its
speed and abilities. As a result, the more fields the internet spreads in, the
more demand for it emerges. Therefore, the underlying reasons of the
increasing demand should be analysized to comprehend why the internet plays
an important role in our lives.

Firstly, saving time is the one of the main reasons of why the internet has
become a widespread technological tool. The era which we are within called
information age, thereby people need to quick access to every kind of
information. This results in an acceleration of the use of the internet.
Moreover, yet life is lived much more rapidly, it requires that every routine
events must be under control. Therefore, by using the internet, every need can
be addressed within little time.

Besides saving time, another cause is resulting from having fun. The internet
consists of lots of videos, pictures, news, and interesing information. Indeed, it
virtually offers a new world. It becomes a friend if you do not have enough, and
a chance to project yourself if you are shy. Thus, people depend on the internet
increasingly. Correspondingly, this situation damages their relationships, and
the more relation is damaged, the more dependance occurs between people
and the internet.

The necessities of devoloping world is another factor in this issue. Owing to

widespread usage of the internet in schools and business life, students and
employees have to be able to use this technology. That is to say, because the
internet facilitates transmissions of both homework in schools and assignments
in the business life via email, it is prefered by teachers and employers.
Therefore, students and employers must learn and use the internet properly.
As a result, it lead to expansion of the internet.

To sum up, saving time, having fun and the necessities of the modern world
are the causes of the increasing demand for the internet. All in all, these
factors reveal more dependance on it. Consequently, a circle between people
and it occurs inevitably, and the internet becomes more and more significant
for us.
The Reasons for The Popularity of Starbucks

Starbucks was founded in 1971 in Seattle, USA, reaches over 26,000 branch

office in 75 countries, thereby it has become a widespread brand all around the

world. For instance, there are 8 Starbucks cafés in İstiklal Caddesi in İstanbul,

which indicates how even Starbucks is popular in Turkey. However, this

popularity has bothered Turkish local firms. Especially, domestic café firms in

Turkey which complain about its popularity accused Turkish customers of being

“xenophile”, namely the domestic firms claim that Turkish customers do not

prefer local firms because of their admiration for foreign products. However,

may “admiration for foreign products” be the only reason for the popularity of

Starbucks in Turkey? This question poses another key question, which is why

Turkish customers obsessively prefer Starbucks. Contrary to the popular beliefs

advocated by the domestic firms, the popularity of Starbucks does not derive

from only “admiration of foreign products”; indeed, the high rate of preference

for Starbucks and the low rate of preference for the local coffee-cafés stem

from the inadequacy of the local market.

One reason for the popularity of Starbucks in Turkey is the initial deficiency of

coffee-cafés in the Turkish market. Before Starbucks came onto the Turkish

market, there had not been popular coffee-based cafés for young population in

Turkey. Therefore, Turkish customers have been affected considerably by this

new concept. If the Turkish market had followed the world trends, they might

have created this concept before Starbucks opened its branch offices in Turkey.

For instance, there are only 18 Starbucks cafés in Greece, and there is only one

in Italy while there are 408 in Turkey. The principal reason for failure of

Starbucks in Greece and Italy is existence of powerful coffee-based firms. As

evidence, there is a powerful coffee firm called Mikel Coffee Company in the

Greek market which was a major competitor with Starbucks. In brief, the

Turkish market should have analyzed properly how Starbucks became such a

successful brand, and protected the Turkish market from the exposure of

Starbucks impacts.

Even though Kahve Dünyası, a Turkish coffee-based café, was founded 1992

before Starbucks came onto the Turkish market in 2003, it could not be a major

competitor of Starbucks because of other deficiencies, one of which is the lack

of comfort which Starbucks provides. Many Turkish customers advocate that

Starbucks has some superiorities over local cafés in terms of comfort, one of

which is continuous and free Internet facility. Needing the Internet to study,

many people prefer cafés having Internet. Most local coffee shops, however,

do not provide uninterrupted Internet facility, which results in the high rate for

preference of Starbucks. Another advantage provided by Starbucks is the

facility of air conditioners and heaters. Although it is highly demanded by

customers, many café owners ignore this fact, thereby losing their potential

customers. The final and the most important factor is the self-service concept.

Because waiters pressure customer to buy the café’s products, customers feel

themselves being suppressed, which makes customers not to prefer those

cafés. However, customers feel free in Starbucks owing to lack of the concept

of waiter. Customers, therefore, spend much more time in Starbucks, and buy

more products. The local coffee-café firms, therefore, should provide the

similar comport opportunities as Starbucks does.

In conclusion, the dramatic high rate for preference of Starbucks in Turkey does

not only originate from “admiration of foreign products”. It appears that the

deficiencies of Turkish market play significant role in the failure of local coffee-

based firms. Even though lack of initial competitors with Starbucks cannot be

fixed in today’s market, the ongoing deficiencies can be overcome. For

instance, the facility of the access to the Internet, air conditioners and heaters

should be provided by the local cafés in order to boost preferability. Also, the

suppression on the customers should be reduced, thereby getting customers to

feel relaxed enough to spend time in the café. Otherwise, the local firms may

continue to lose their customers, and help Starbucks to get their customers.
 LOCAL ELECTIONS IN TURKEY

Local elections, in which people decide who the mayor of their provinces and
districts will be, are held once every five years in Turkey. Even if local elections
have a significant impact on their lives, people are inclined to ignore them upon
deciding whether they will vote or not. Not considering its consequences,
people wish they had voted or chosen somebody else after being governed
improperly. People disregarding local elections allege several reasons for doing
it, one of which is the assertion that before solving city’s glitches, problems in
Turkish politics need to be solved; so were they general elections, people
would vote more attentively. In addition to priorities, they underestimate the
importance of mayors by claiming that mayors are not the ones who can
improve people’s life conditions in general and find solutions to economic and
social problems, but the government is. Another justification made for not
voting in local elections is that there is no candidate who goes with their ideas.
On the other hand, many people vote for the same person, who is known for
unpleasant political background while governing that city, asserting that letting
another person be the mayor would not change anything or things would get
worse than they already are.

Claiming it is only the government’s duty to solve economic and social

problems is so popular that the majority of the Turkish population does not
concentrate on their choice while voting on local elections as much as they do
in general elections. Even though a government itself shoulders more
responsibility than municipalities, the duties that the municipalities are charged
with cannot be ignored even though it is underestimated that how important
they are. Unless it has already fulfilled or is inhibited by the government, they
are charged with building new facilities that accommodate people’s needs and
managing city’s budget allocated by the government. For instance, the
municipality of Bursa would be responsible for managing a theatre if
government had not constituted it yet. Nevertheless, the municipality of Bursa
has already constituted another theatre company hoping it would meet with
approval. Also, the government may get municipalities to open facilities, but it
is the mayor deciding if it is necessary or not, which makes us infer that mayor
plays a key role on contributing city’s attraction. In addition to the things that
need to be done by both government and municipalities, it is necessary to state
what municipalities could do during the process of solving citizen’s problems.
As a case in point, the municipality of Eskişehir pioneered taking a loan directly
from the IMF and resolved the economic problems the city had gone through.
Also, since being charged with constituting officers working for municipalities,
mayors bear tremendous responsibility for maintaining the city. For example,
improving the infrastructure of the city, keeping the city clean, managing
facilities people who live in the city can benefit from are responsibilities, most
of which are ignored, that municipalities must oversee, and mayors must put in
order.

Moreover, research indicates that approximately sixty percent of Turkish

people thinking the current administration is not qualified enough to govern
the city claim that had they voted for someone else, things could have gotten
worse even though it is expected that if people had been having difficulty
complying with the old administration’s policies, they would not have voted for
the same candidate again. However, insisting on voting for a mayor whose
qualifications are not suitable for governing damages not only city’s
maintenance but also courage of other candidates because if the opposition
parties’ candidates do not succeed in local elections, they will lose their
motivation in general elections. Furthermore, the wrong policies having been
implemented by those parties constrain cities from advancing. So, it must be
taken into consideration that other candidates’ commitments can also be
reliable. With new policies carried out by another administration on
infrastructure, facilities and budget, the city shows a marked improvement.

Another commentary many people do, differing from others in that they are
made on both local and general elections, is that there is no candidate whose
ideas they can support or who is proposed by a party they support. Deciding
not to vote on elections by supposing that it is a valid justification, those people
disregard a crucial detail on both city’s and country’s future, which is conceding
their fate to an administrator who they do not trust and support, then being
governed improperly. Not regarding any candidates as a proper one leads
them to another fallacy, which is neither researching nor regarding other
candidate’s commitments and personal backgrounds. A candidate who has a
professional manner on politics can the shatter faith of people who disregard
other candidates' credibility. By being neutral toward other candidates and
voting for one of them, people prevent being governed inappropriately for
another five years.

Consequently, having made that mistake before, a significant part of people

wishes somebody else was governing the city. Therefore, people must be
aware of possible consequences of local elections before voting for someone
they did not search attentively. Whether they get facilities built by government
or not, municipalities play a big role in deciding if it should be done. Also, being
charged with assuring that the employees of the municipality do their job
effectively, mayors have a significant impact on the institutions we benefit from
and services we get as citizens. Additionally, before voting for a candidate who
had governed a city, people must take her/his management skills into
consideration and never forget that every single vote plays a major role in both
city’s and country’s future.
CAUSES OF STRESS

In recent times, stress is a common issue among the people who reside in
Turkey. Most of citizens are suffering from stress and usually, sources of their
stress resemble each other. These problems are being remained to consider as
natural outcomes of modern life by Turkish people while starting to become
deviant. So, these common problems need to be solved for better social life.
Before making judgements about solutions, their reasons need to be/
evaluated with attention, too. If the reasons are collected into general
headings, it is easily seen that political and financial problems are the most
commons ones.

As a beginning, political issues create crucial problems in Turkish people's life

because they occupy a lot of area in social life of citizens. Unable to be neutral
on political topics, they tend to disagree. In recent years, these differentiates
resulted in separation of the society and political issues have started to have
being indisputable. Having not reached a compromise, people became distant
each other. These circumstances caused that they don't socialize even by
talking daily issues. Consequently, people of Turkey have started to live with
stress and that they won't be able to get rid of this asocial life easily isn't hard
to guess. Because of this miscommunication, political problems are leading to
stressful life.

Another cause of stress of Turkish people is financial problems. Turkey's

economy is having hard times and this situation affect people directly in terms
of many aspects. Although it is debatable that unemployment is the most
significant result of the economic crisis, it contributes to citizens' level of stress
greatly. They are upset to live under these conditions. Moreover,
unemployment has made people of Turkey run out of money day by day.
Failing on meeting their needs and requests, they got stuck in a stressful
situation. They were looking forward to have had better life in future for a long
time but in recent years, people, especially some segments of the society, are
too hopeless to maintain to have similar dreams. Trying to remove financial
problems, they encountered social and familial problems, too, because of
lacking money. As an obvious result of these examples, economic problems
help people of Turkey to have stress problems.
To conclude, it can be said political and financial problems are the leading
reasons of stress of Turkish people. They cause multiple incidents and any of
them has a positive side. People of Turkey are sad to be /obliged to have these
difficulties and of course, they saw their ancestors /endure similar problems.
However, these issues should be put to an end by Turkish people in order not
to grow further. Nonetheless, people of Turkey seem to hope being rescued by
someone else.
 THE ISSEU OF SYRIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY

Since the Syrian civil war emerged in 2011, Syrian refugees who need to be
helped have been coming to Turkey. Turkish people had embraced them with
full of hospitality at the beginning. They were their neighbors and religious
fellows above all, and Turks had been willing to share their homes with them.
The Turkish government accepted Syrians under certain conditions. The
refugee camps had been instantly built in the southeastern of Turkey and
thousands of refugees started to be settled there. The situation was totally
under control and Syrians were happy to have been accepted to this
community. Later, coming uninterruptedly, Syrian refugees began to be too
crowded to fit in those camps. After one point, the Turkish government
stopped to record this diaspora and preferred to watch them spreading among
Turkey rapidly. Since the war has never finished in Syria for nine years, the
refugees who had been regarded as guests once were seemed to stay
permanently; consequently, they were started not being wanted in Turkey
anymore. When and how exactly this presence has become a serious issue?
Every Turkish citizen has an opinion about it, some blame the EU or the
government, but most of them want to dispatch Syrians to Syria in which more
than fifty radical groups are currently fighting. Although everyone prefers to
address this problem from a distinct point of view, there are three major
contributing factors in terms of endless duration of the conflict, intolerance of
different groups towards each other, and mismanagement of the process.

The fact that the war, which everyone has once considered to end, doesn’t
seem to be over contributed to the issue of Syrian refugees in Turkey. If
somebody comes to your home as a guest, you will anticipate him to stay
roughly two or three days. If he stays for more than a month, you will start to
expect him to contribute to the domestic economy. This example perfectly
indicates the expectations of Turkish people which has derived from the
unexpected duration of the conflict. However, Syrians never started to
contribute to the economy; they, by contrast, received help from the
government with the taxes of citizens, which has made Turks lose hope and
conclude that the rapidly growing population of Syrians in Turkey will stay
indefinitely. As a result, the hostility between Turks and Syrians has arisen.

Intolerance of different groups, Syrians and Turks in this case, which has
evolved through the years is another cause of this problem. People started to
take advantage of others’ vulnerability and some horrible disasters have
occurred. To illustrate, some Turkish men have tricked Syrian girls in order to
derive from them or some refugees’ money were taken with empty promises;
and some refugees have committed various crimes including burglary, rape or
even murder. The former may be understandable in a way that needing some
essentials to live and being unable to be employed, they have no other options;
but the last two are unacceptable regardless of what has happened. After all,
due to the generalization among the members of the society, whole society
was held responsible for those crimes on both sides and hostility between sides
has increased.

The final and the most significant cause of this issue is mismanagement of the
process. At first, the government had some precautions and restrictions about
refugee policy; however, when the incident started to get out of control, they
did not continue to fight. The initial commitments did not come true, and the
government let Syrians leave camps and disperse all over Turkey and even
provided resistance. Syrians have indeed appreciated having been helped; on
the contrary, Turks didn’t support this policy and criticized the decision.
Moreover, a great deal of news about the privileges that have been provided to
the Syrians went viral. Yet, Turkish people started talking only about these
privileges and considered them unnecessary and unfair especially having
already had plenty of serious problems. On the other hand, in contrast to the
common belief that Syrians are happy with their conditions, most of them do
not even want to stay in Turkey permanently. They want to move to Europe
instead, but since the EU has closed all ways to escape while congratulating
Turkey for its success in handling this issue, they are stuck between Syria and
Turkey. Hence, it is clear that this was a loss for both sides and ignited the
hostility even more.

In conclusion, during the time that Syrians have lived in Turkey, nonending
conflict, impatience, and political mistakes have resulted in the hostility
between the Turkish community and Syrian refugees. Such has reflected to the
media; thus, the presence of Syrians has become a serious issue, in time. Since
being left alone by the EU which had made Turkey handle this problem at the
very beginning, the Turkish government could not prevent this issue from
emerging. Yet, there is still a solution, that is uniting to form a comprehensive
plan and to carry out it properly. Otherwise, this unpleasant dispute can never
be avoided.