By Mehmet Emin Birpinar
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After 1950, rural-urban migrations in our country laid the housing stock bare. As a result of the failure to ensure the balance of supply and demand, people produced their own solutions, giving rise to squatting.
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After the 1999 Marmara earthquake, new standards were developed for the construction of earthquake-resistant housing and the relevant legal infrastructure was improved.
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Certainly, progress remained limited as it became a money-related issue rather than one about the safety and protection of property.
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So far, only a total of 1.4 million houses have been renewed as part of the 2012 plan to initiate urban renewal.
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The new objective is to renew 1.5 million houses, all considered urgent, by the end of 2023, which marks the 100th anniversary of the Turkish republic. In other words, an average of around 400,000 houses will be renewed on an annual basis.