Abstract
Metropolitan municipalities are responsible for social services in Turkey. This study is built on two main points that affect each other: (1) the creation of a social texture map with the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and (2) the establishment of a Social Information Center (SIC) in the city of Konya, Turkey, within the scope of Konya Metropolitan Municipality. The SIC Project includes the relation of the local government services to the public and can be described as an important project. As the scope of this project is conceived on a model scale of Konya Province, it includes important steps where inferences can be made on the scale of Turkey.
Keywords
Introduction
Social services have co-existed with poverty and other socio-economic problems and needs throughout human history. Even if they have varied over time, the quality, scope, methodology, institutional structure, and funding of these services have constituted one of the most important issues of society and the state for centuries. Generally, in the process of historical development in all societies, there have been various social services and welfare applications, shaped by traditions, religious and cultural values, and social conditions, which are similar in several aspects. A variety of social services and welfare activities, carried out by religious institutions, trade associations, and other voluntary organizations, have functioned effectively to meet the needs of the poor and homeless and help protect them. Especially after the Second World War, delivering social services was one of the most fundamental duties of the state as a result of the concept of the welfare state, or social state.
While the principle of a social state is vested in the state taking responsibility for these social services, the benefits of these services and welfare began to be regarded as a social right by the citizens. Considering the effects of the global economic crisis, particularly in Turkey, the importance of this issue in terms of society and the state of social services emerges as an indisputable fact. In addition, the importance of social resources is further increasing, especially in terms of the poor and needy outside the system because of the problems and limitations of the social security system.
The emergence of the Turkish welfare system goes back to Ottoman times in which the welfare policy was closely interlinked with some Muslim institutions so-called ‘Vakıf’. The social welfare system was totally influenced by Islamic values (Sahin, 2008). Turkey has many of the properties of the Southern European welfare regimes. But in spite of the common characteristics with Southeastern European countries, the welfare regime in Turkey has its own particularities. These particularities are due to economic, institutional, and social factors including religion and traditions. In fact, the role played by the family, municipalities, and religious local institutions has to be taken into consideration. In the absence of a well defined social policy combating the poverty and exclusion, the state intervenes not directly and systematically but through particular mechanisms (Sonmez, 2007).
Looking at major trends in social security and labor market arrangements, it is said that Turkey represents a ‘hybrid’ model embodying the characteristics of both Middle Eastern and Southern European welfare models. When compared to the Southern European welfare model, Turkey’s distinctive position is clearly manifested. Its rising levels of social expenditure, its fragmented welfare provision system, and the corporatist-based nature of its social insurance all hold true for Southern Europe too. The Turkish welfare regime went through a significant transformation over the last couple of decades (Aybars and Tsarouhas, 2010).
While the total social service and welfare spending from public sources was US$1.61bn in 2002, the amount was US$7.95bn in 2008, a fivefold increase from different public enterprises, such as social welfare and solidarity promotion funds, social services and child protection institutions, the directorate general for foundations, administration for disabled people, the directorate general of family and social research, the directorate general on the status of women, and municipal corporations in Turkey. The use of such disparate institutional structures of significant public funding to reach the most disadvantaged sections of the society inevitably reveals increasing drawbacks (Devlet Denetleme Kurulu (DDK), 2009). For example, local government institutions have not implemented a standard approach and application for social services and welfare-provided services, and welfare differs across foundations and organizations. Departments of central government cannot undertake this task.
Metropolitan municipalities are establishments which are responsible for administering social services and for helping low-income, poor, needy, orphaned, and disabled people, with reference to Article 7/V-18/M-24/J of law number 5216 for metropolitan municipalities.
For this purpose, it is necessary to distribute welfare using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and to document the distribution of welfare to the city and the identification of the needy districts, and to make the distribution of welfare just and functional by using other elements of GIS within the Konya Metropolitan Municipality.
GIS emerged in the latter part of the 20th century as an integrated information technology that includes database management, spatial analysis, and map display capabilities to portray geospatial relationships in map form (Nyerges, 2009). GIS has become an increasingly important technology within broader social areas. For example, Spielman and Thill (2008) present a novel application of GIS by integrating them with a data-mining technique to characterize populations in urban areas using large datasets. Hillier (2007) argues that GIS can benefit social work by continuing and strengthening the social survey tradition; providing a framework for understanding human behavior; identifying community needs and assets; improving the delivery of social services; and empowering communities and traditionally disenfranchised groups. In recent years, there have been increasing numbers of studies dealing with social issues and GIS (Alcaraz et al., 2009; Dorch et al., 2010; Ebert et al., 2009; Neckerman et al., 2009; Nykiforuk and Flaman, 2011; Sherrouse et al., 2011).
GIS is a very useful system for local administration. It is an important management device for engineering applications such as highways, irrigation and sewerage systems and provides coordination for other services as well as planning studies in local administrations. This study, supported by the Konya Metropolitan Municipality, is built on two main points that affect each other: first, the creation of a social texture map with the help of GIS and second, the establishment of the Social Information Center (SIC) in the city of Konya, Turkey.
In this project, a social texture map production was performed for the first time in Turkey in municipal activities, and SIC was used in Turkey on a GIS-based database which has been established within the Konya Metropolitan Municipality, with reference to Article 7/H of law number 5216 for metropolitan municipalities.
Materials and methods
Definition of the study area
The field of the study includes the metropolitan municipality areas in the city of Konya, which are within the borders of the Konya Metropolitan Municipality. The city of Konya is geographically situated between 36.5° and 39.5° north latitude and between 31.5° and 34.5° east longitude, and it is the largest province of Turkey according to geographical area (38,257 km2). It is located close to the center of the country (Figure 1). The average height above average sea level is about 1016 m. The city of Konya has 199 local municipalities, 31 towns, and 584 villages. The population of the city is over 2 million, according to the 2012 data (2.73% of Turkey’s population), with a growth rate of 1.06 percent per annum. The population is relatively young, with 26.8 percent falling in the 0–14 years age bracket, 65.8 percent in the 15–64 age bracket, and 7.4 percent over the age of 65. It is heavily urban, with 74 percent residing in cities. The unemployment rate in Konya increased to 8.2 percent in 2010. The above data are reported by the Turkish Statistical Institute (Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu (TUIK)). Konya is a very important agricultural, industrial, and commercial area, and considered the granary of Turkey. There are four universities with more than 100,000 students in the city. Konya’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009 stood at US$9062.
The geographical position of Konya City.
The aims of the social texture map and the SIC
The aim of the social texture map is to illustrate the social texture and poverty map of the socio-economic and demographic structure of Konya City, using GIS technology. It will strengthen the social dimension of the distribution of the municipal service, support the interaction between citizens and the municipality through the questionnaires, and highlight the dispersion of people in need city-wide through the use of GIS.
The reasons for the SIC project are as follows:
There is a long or short research period for the welfare receiver during the welfare distribution process, and this places very needy people in a difficult situation as they cannot receive the necessary welfare.
This welfare, which is provided by the municipality, or by the establishments or foundations which are responsible for distributing welfare, is designed to deal with the issue of unearned income from seemingly poor, undeserving people, and to make sure that the welfare is not seriously abused.
Welfare which is distributed by various establishments and foundations is limited to the people who have made an application, while very needy people are still aggrieved.
As the records which are kept of the welfare are not standards and the foundations do not co-ordinate their work with each other, there may be some people who receive welfare more than once.
The aim of the SIC is to provide information to other welfare establishments, to supply welfare to really needy people, to prevent the duplication of welfare and subsequent welfare abuse, to distribute welfare in a just way, to provide the maximum information for the welfare provider, and to make sure welfare reaches needy people.
Data collection
In this study, various data were collected and arranged for the social texture maps. An orthophoto is an aerial photograph geometrically corrected and can be used to measure accurate distances. Orthophotos are commonly used in the creation of a GIS. Therefore, first, orthophotos were taken. These aerial photos were digitized and processed according to GIS standards (Figure 2(a)). Second, all streets and main roads were digitized and determined as streets; highway start and end points were produced centerline (Figure 2(b)). The road network was produced for a navigation system and an emergency system with a shortest path analysis, and so on (Figure 2(c)). Then, a number system was produced for buildings (Figure 2(d)) and an identification number given to all buildings (Figure 2(e)). Finally, photographs were taken of all streets and buildings, and barcodes were applied to all buildings (Figure 2(f)).
Generated information by GIS for the social texture map.
Methodology
The study focuses on two main points which affect each other: first, the creation of a social texture map with the help of GIS and second, the establishment of a SIC.
With the formation of the social texture map and the SIC for the purposes referred to in the previous section, the use of the GIS technologies has created a work surface which can produce solutions to health, social, cultural, economic, and technical problems.
For the data collection and other systems integrating with GIS, we first collected social questionnaires from all dwellings concerning a citizen’s social state, and also demographic information by GIS address barcode. The general contents of the questionnaire dealt with demography, health, economy, municipality services, settlement information, and social welfare situation. Second, a city plan was collected from the metropolitan municipality and district municipalities, then converted to a GIS file system and integrated into the GIS. Infrastructure maps were collected from infrastructure companies, and a base map was created from the collected and processed data; these data were then integrated into the GIS. Distributed welfare data were collected for the poor from charitable organizations, all foundations, and associations and collated into a combined database. Then, the address-based population registration system (Adrese Dayalı Nüfus Kayıt Sistemi (ADNKS)) was integrated into the GIS with governmental protocols. ADNKS which can be used as a basis for population and housing census and more importantly used by other governmental organizations for their official purposes is a national population project. Finally, Land Registry and Cadastre Information System (Tapu Kadastro Bilgi Sistemi (TAKBIS)) were integrated into the GIS with data sharing protocols. TAKBIS is an integrated information system; standardizing operations relating to land registry and cadastre technique of General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre and enabling transactions carried out in the Land Registry and Cadastre Directorates (including chiefdoms), in accordance with the legislation and in computer environment.
Public surveys
The questions submitted to the households surveyed were as follows: the presence and type of disability, the presence and type of chronic disease (heart, kidney, orthopedic, respiratory diseases, etc.), the presence and number of students; the presence of students outside the city, income status, the presence of vehicles, Internet presence, whether they are with their partners or not, the presence of class and social security, whether they are able to work, the presence of unemployed, and fuel consumption type. The survey largely achieved the aims of gathering social, demographic, and education information about the population. The survey is statistically fully sampling. The barcode-based infrastructure of the survey is not confined to illustrating a specific time, but could be continuously updated.
Analysis
In the area of study, data were created and analysis and mapping studies were carried out using the GIS software. Interpolation and densities were determined by the Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method, and then social texture maps were obtained.
Interpolation methods have been developed based on the theory that points closer to each other have more correlations than those distanced from each other. In the IDW method, it is assumed that the rate of correlations and similarities between neighbors is proportional to the distance between them that can be defined as a distance reverse function of every point from neighboring points (Yasrebi et al., 2009):
where Z0 is the estimation value of variable z in point I, Zi is the sample value in point I, di is the distance of sample point to estimated point, N is the coefficient that determines weight based on a distance, and n is the total number of predictions for each validation case.
IDW directly implements the assumption that a value of an attribute at an unsampled location is a weighted average of known data points within a local neighborhood surrounding the unsampled location (Robinson and Metternicht, 2006).
These maps will be fed into and form the updated infrastructure of the SIC.
In this project, development is achieved by means of what is known as the ‘Spatial Key’ and which is based upon geographical information technologies. This allows needy people who cannot make an application to be reached.
The Spatial Key was designed as a structure which represents address details, building details, and population service-based personal information in a related way. This can also be referred to as an Urban Information System base structure. Personal social data are acquired and integrated into the project, and it has become possible to develop map-based services.
The project is supported by a GIS database and also holds its own datasets. In this regard, it provides a web-supported service infrastructure and software technology to official institutions and nongovernmental organizations, developed with software from the Internet for users to easily find the project title and details. The developed architecture of the SIC is shown in Figure 3.
Architecture of the Social Information Center.
The servers of the project, which are application servers and database servers built on the base of the Internet, are within our institutions. The user accesses information to meet their needs on the software platform via user name and password authentication.
In SIC systems, all interchange of data between enterprises is provided by web services. The security and privacy of the information is provided by web service security protocols, user-based Internet protocols (IPs), and the license mechanism, as well as by following up user questioning logs. Therefore, the information about people or establishments is viewed only by related departments.
Results and discussion
Results
Welfare is not a simple unique concept. It embodies many problems (social, economic, etc.) which need to be questioned. Welfare which is provided by the state or other organizations is a necessity for a social state. Following spatial or personal information concerning welfare, and questioning these elements on a GIS-based database and usage with other elements via analysis (employment, planning, etc.), is also a necessity for understanding the social state.
The basis of the model involves the organization of gathering welfare distributing organizations in a center according to their welfare activities, providing information sharing between them and easing the research for the welfare by using the existing GIS substructure. Within the scope of this model, a picture of the pattern of the distribution of welfare can be formed by gathering all the organizations in a pool and supporting them by using the standards of supportive technologies.
Another goal of the project is that service planning can be shaped for the population’s social and demographic structure by creating a social texture map. A social texture map embodies income status, health status, educational status, needs status, satisfaction with urban services, and social security status.
The target of this study was to achieve an integration of the social texture map and the software platform into the GIS in Konya City, Turkey. The elements that seem to have nothing to do with this target, such as the interaction between space-oriented elements and social factors, will play an important role in the present and future of the GIS in Konya City in determining the management policies of the administration, the decision-making process, and the analysis of these. Density analyses of many social conditions were performed for the social texture map with GIS software. This produced density analysis maps for the following: vascular diseases, dialyses diseases, ophthalmology diseases, cardiac diseases, otorhinolaryngology diseases, chronic diseases, where household income is between US$0 and US$412, where household income is upwards of US$824, chronic patients who have no social security, the unemployed who are capable of work, security and public peace needs, air pollution, housebreaking, and internal migration for Konya City (Figure 4).
Produced social texture maps with GIS: density analysis of (a) vascular diseases, (b) dialyses diseases, (c) ophthalmology diseases, (d) cardiac diseases, (e) otorhinolaryngology diseases, (f) chronic diseases, (g) household income between US$0 and US$412, (h) household income upwards of US$824, (i) chronic patients who have no social security, (j) jobless who are capable of work, (k) security and public peace needs, (l) air pollution, (m) housebreaking, and (n) internal migration.
The project carried out survey studies to determine the needs and opinions of the citizens. Within the context of GIS in creating the fundamental basis of the project, a survey was organized covering all households in Konya. Within the scope of this study, 289,000 households were visited.
With the development of the project’s technological content, the detection of, recognition of, and giving the necessary assistance to the people in need will be made unsolicited.
The welfare activities carried out under the project since 2008 are as demonstrated in Table 1. By the year 2014, the number of foundations which use the project acts as data entry is 118 associations, 19 institutions, and 38 organizations for Konya City.
The welfare activities carried out under the project in Konya City.
The SIC project includes the reflection of the local government services to the public and can be described as an important project. The project makes important contributions to reach those in need and highlights the need to create potential labor in the fields of employment required. As the scope of this project is conceived as a model scale of Konya Province, it includes important steps to carry out inferences on the scale of Turkey. These steps provide important data to the municipalities in today’s information society.
Spatial keys, address information, building information, contact information, personal information, all based on the population service, are designed in a structure to associate with each other. With the personal information integrated into the project, it has been possible to reach a map-based service.
Limitations
Before the project started, there were many problems in providing assistance to people in need. This project brings innovative solutions to the problems that could not be solved before. The problems and the solutions that came along with the project are as follows:
The private foundations and associations were getting limited access to the data due to their status. This limitation is due to the security of personal data against malicious use.
The assistance delivered in the past was open to resource exploitation and wastage because of the methods and procedures. This has produced material and spiritual burdens because of the uncertainty over the real needs of people.
With the absence of a geography-based welfare, recording assistance made was limited. For the administrators, results were not able to be analyzed as they were all paper-based.
The SIC brought solutions to all these problems. Accessing the software database without any financial concerns made the project attractive to the institutions and organizations.
The procedures were minimized and the work streams were designed on the functional GIS software platform so welfare agencies could reach people in need more rapidly and in a more organized way. Repeat incidents of assistance have been avoided, the limit on access to data has been eliminated, and the confidentiality of personal information has been secured.
Discussion
Metropolitan municipalities are responsible for social services in Turkey. This responsibility is starting to include the assistance of institutions in the city to people in need, to prevent the incidents of duplicate assistance delivered by more than one agency, to help coordinate the assistance, and to put an end to all kinds of abuse.
All the public and private welfare organizations will be able to see the application process for assistance from which foundation or association and what kind of help the applicant received because of the system implemented by the project. An organization will be able to see from which organization help was received, and what kind of help was given, as well as seeing real estate ownership, population size, the exact address information in the city, socio-economic information, and the GIS analysis of the place of residence. The organizations which are included in the integrated database engine will be able to see their own and other institutions’/organizations’ information in the system.
The social texture map produced by the project can achieve several analyses, such as urban planning services, municipal services, general assistance services, and general health services. Public and private institutions can have access to the data system in accordance with the necessary protocols. Not every charitable organization can see all of the information, but they have access to the information that is needed to provide both a security policy as well as a specific standardization of the data. Citizens can access the project.
From the start of the project implementation, assistance has become faster and more effective due to the improvement in the research phase carried out about applicant data. With the help of continuous surveys, the information about the social situations of the citizens is entered into the database, so that the currency of the surveys made in the previous years, the opinions and demands of the citizens about the municipal services are all provided. These demands are kept as classical statistical information and integrated into the GIS, so it is possible to obtain information regarding which problems are concentrated in which part of the city. Information, such as statistical results and their distribution city-wide, is shared with city managers and with citizens by the reporting tools. This method means that all can see the change in demands in the city and it also provides direct participation in the management.
There were other gains from the project: not only was a data library created about people who receive assistance, but also the possibility of detecting people in need by spatial analysis of data.
The workflow of social welfare data is shown in Figures 5 and 6 for before and after the project. According to Figure 5, applications for welfare are shown but welfare data are not shared inter-agency, and agencies do not query address, land registry, building, or demographical attribute information. According to Figure 6, all welfare data are deployed across a partnership database, and all records and controlling welfare data and distribution can be queried with the GIS.
Social welfare data workflow before GIS.
Social welfare data workflow with GIS.
Conclusion
The data regarding registration for help are usually independent from the map performed on the textual database. These studies, which are independent from geography, give positive results for the applicants that apply for assistance, but it affects those who do not apply negatively. From the studies carried out, some of the people in need apply for assistance and receive welfare, but some of them do not apply due to some humanitarian reasons or their social circles. With the help of the project’s GIS, people in need who do not apply are detected and they can access help without being in any situation that makes them uncomfortable. Data about people who receive assistance and from which institution it comes are kept transparent for the necessary official authorities to inspect. According to the evaluation of all these elements, the project contains sustainable elements.
With the social texture map and the SIC identifying and helping people in need, social services effectively became faster and more equitable in Konya City, Turkey. The extensive abuse of the assistance compromises the necessary trust element and prevents it from reaching some of the people in need of these agencies. This project is aimed at preventing the unnecessary duplications, implementing a judicious distribution, and identifying the people who are in need but do not come forward to get help. Duplication of services can be minimized by using the methods outlined in this article. The project provides the residents indirectly to welfare the planning of activities of the city by recognizing the social-demographic structure, the more suitable formation of urban spaces, and planning of social spaces.
After the start of the project, the productivity of the phase of research into the applicants increased and it became more effective and faster. The open source core takes place in the software and provides the users rapidity in meeting their demands and expectations of the program. This helps speed up the preliminary research phase which is very convenient for the program users.
GIS is used to capture, manage, analyze, and display all forms of geographically referenced information. GIS databases include a wide variety of information such as geographic, social, political, environmental, and demographic. GIS technology can be integrated into any enterprise information system framework. Geographical information is very important in understanding community needs, determining environmental forces, delivering services more efficiently, and detecting misuse of social assistance.
Before the project started, there were many problems in providing assistance to people in need. This project brings innovative solutions to problems which could not be solved before. The problems and the solutions to them which were established by the project are as follows. First, the private foundations and associations were getting limited access to the data due to their status. This limitation was imposed for the security of personal data against malicious use. Second, the assistance delivered in the past was open to resource exploitation and wastage because of the methods and procedures. This has produced material and spiritual burdens because of the uncertainty over the real needs of people. Third, with the absence of a geography-based welfare, recording assistance made was limited. For the administrators, results were not able to be analyzed as they were all paper-based.
The SIC brought solutions to all these problems. Accessing the software database without any financial concerns made the project attractive to the institutions and organizations. The procedures were minimized and the work streams were designed on the functional GIS software platform so welfare agencies could reach people in need in a more organized and efficient way. Thus, the incidents of duplicated assistance have been avoided, the limits of access to data have been eliminated, and the confidentiality of personal information has been secured.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.