Abstract:

The administration of metropolitan cities is one of the problems discussed since the past until today. These debates focus rather on the issues of scale, realization of more effective, efficient and economic local services, ensuring local participation and strengthening democracy. The metropolitan municipal system, which has been implemented in Turkey since 1984, has been improved by adding new metropolitan cities in the following periods and benefiting from new models such as radius-based expansion and integration. Recently, Law No. 6360 issued in December 2012 made important changes in local government legislation. The discussions on all the other problems, especially the scale problem, have come to the agenda again and more strongly. One of the innovations brought by this law is the equalization of municipalities’ contiguous area to the borders of the province. In addition, the law creates a dual structure: the legal entities of provincial special administrations, town municipalities and villages have been abolished only in the municipal cities. The villages have been transformed into the neighborhoods. This has created doubts about the effective, efficient and economic fulfillment of local services, the provision of political participation and the implementation of democracy in the provinces having very wide geographical boundaries. Administrative, political, social and urban influences of the new metropolitan model, which has started to be implemented after the local elections in 2014, have begun to be seen in practice. In this study, primarily the historical development of the metropolitan administration system within the Turkish local government system will be outlined. Critics and evaluations on the Law No. 6360 will be briefly mentioned. Finally, the effects of the new metropolitan system will be evaluated on the case of Konya province with the widest geographical boundaries. The issue of how and in which dimensions the new model impacted Konya will be examined by tabulating the data on Konya.

Keywords: