The spatial transformation of industry

Announced following last week's Cabinet Meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the new incentive package aimed at spreading industry across Anatolia stands out as a strategic transformation initiative. This policy set, which integrates critical areas such as achieving balance in regional development, sustainable urbanization, and disaster resilience, offers a multi-layered and in-depth vision. This article will analyze the potential contributions of these incentives to Türkiye's regional development dynamics, urbanization practices, and resilience to disasters.

What Does the Policy Set Encompass?

The spread of industry across Anatolia has become a state policy supported by concrete figures. Indeed, following the last Cabinet Meeting, the framework outlined by President Erdoğan clarified the roadmap for this transformation. The ‘Industrial Areas Master Plan’ aims to increase the size of planned industrial areas across Türkiye to 350,000 hectares. The strategy defined to achieve this goal is to open four new industrial corridors in Anatolia. The state is encouraging this large-scale migration not only with physical infrastructure but also with financial tools; increasing SME employment support from 2,500 TL to 3,500 TL by 2026 and bringing large industrial giants under this umbrella could contribute to accelerating the process. At the same time, a special incentive is being introduced for labor-intensive businesses moving from major cities in the west to Anatolian provinces. Industrial facilities to be established in 24 designated cities will be exempt from Social Security Institution premiums for up to 14 years. This exemption will provide a significant cost advantage, especially for sectors operating with low profit margins.

Planned Urbanization and Balanced Regional Development

Türkiye faces a unique and unsustainable problem of centralization in terms of the geographical distribution of its population. According to current TÜİK data, more than 15.6 million of our approximately 85 million population reside in Istanbul alone. Referencing water consumption data in Istanbul, İSKİ calculates the city's population to be approximately 19 million. These figures show that Istanbul's population accounts for nearly one-fifth of the country's total population.

More importantly, when considering the entire Marmara Region, which is the country's industrial and commercial center, it is seen that more than a quarter of the population (approximately 30%) lives in a very small portion of Türkiye's total land area. This excessive concentration traps the problems created by urbanization in an inescapable vicious cycle. Quality of life in cities is rapidly declining, infrastructure is becoming inadequate, time spent in traffic is increasing, and housing costs are rising due to high demand. This centralized structure of industrialization and urbanization turns these problems into a spiral. The fundamental way to break free from this spiral is to distribute industry in a balanced manner across the country to risk-free areas and to create permanent, sustainable employment opportunities in Anatolia. The vision of four industrial corridors announced by the President can be seen as a response to this need for spatial justice.

It is important to compare Türkiye's efforts with good models around the world. In this context, Germany, which has almost the same population (84.7 million) as Türkiye, can be referenced as a model that has successfully established a balance between industrialization and urbanization. Berlin, Germany's most populous city, has a population of only around 3.7 million. The key to this multi-centered urbanization model is the balanced and horizontal distribution of industry across the country. Cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, and Frankfurt, which rank among the top five in terms of population density in Germany, also have similar populations. This balanced distribution can be seen throughout the country, with 80 cities in Germany having a population of over 100,000. This structure does not put pressure on a single metropolis, while industrial facilities are seamlessly connected to major ports and international centers via an integrated logistics network of high-standard highways, railways, and inland waterways.

Multi-Centered Resilience

The vision of this incentive package, which has been put into effect, goes beyond economic goals to establish a geographical defense line against the most pressing reality in Türkiye: disaster vulnerability. The balanced development of cities is a fundamental condition for long-term national stability and security. The fact that such a large economic and human concentration exists in an area with a high risk of earthquakes, such as the Marmara Region, which produces approximately 40% of the country's industrial and financial capacity, is a national security issue beyond the regional level. Damage to this single-centered economic capacity in the event of a major disaster carries the risk of plunging the country into a severe economic crisis that could last for decades.

Therefore, the implementation of the four newly announced industrial corridors and strong incentives such as Social Security premium exemptions lasting up to 14 years will serve as vital spatial insurance for the backbone of the Turkish economy. The greatest value of this model is that it eliminates the risk of concentrating economic capacity in a few cities and thus concentrating disaster risk in specific centers. This is because the announced policy set aims to prevent damage from being concentrated in a single point in the event of a possible disaster and to strengthen the country's economic recovery capacity by spreading production resources, employment, and thus population across Anatolia.

Burak Kaplan completed his undergraduate studies in Political Science and Public Administration, his master’s degree in public policy, and his PhD in Local Governments and Urban Policies. He conducts scientific research on urban and environmental issues.