“Antalya is inflating like a balloon and is about to burst”, – such an assessment of the situation in the city was voiced by the head of the Department of Migration Studies at Akdeniz University, Dr. Hasan Aigul. The main problem of the resort is a huge number of migrants, or rather two waves of migration – from foreigners and from refugees from earthquake regions. And this can threaten the resort with extremely unpleasant collisions, a Turkish expert said on the pages of the Turkrus publication.
“About 163 thousand foreigners live in Antalya. This is a serious number. Once a city of pensioners and students, a city with cheap housing, it is becoming the province that receives the most foreigners after Istanbul. Since February last year, Antalya has received Ukrainians, then Russians, Uzbeks and Kazakhs prefer to work here, even earlier the city accepted Iranians and Syrians. The last wave was over 150,000 people who arrived here after the earthquake,” the Turkish professor said. As a result, “Antalya is inflating like a balloon” and the city’s reserves are almost exhausted, the professor assured.
The main problem is the rise in prices for everything, and especially for housing. According to the expert, prices have risen by 195%. “This is no longer the city where people can work for years, buy a house and settle on their savings,” Mr. Aygül comments. He also stressed that neither the housing market, nor life in Antalya is no longer cheap, especially for internally displaced persons due to the earthquake. “At the same time, they see what Russian and Ukrainian immigrants can afford. They began to live in the best houses that send their children to private schools,” the Turkish expert explained. According to him, while the economic situation is somehow kept “afloat”, but it is very unreliable.
“You can become a foreigner in your country in an instant. This additionally makes a person unhappy, misfortune breeds anger, and anger can become a reason for an attack at any moment,” Mr. Aygul added. He is also sure that the situation is gradually heating up.
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