The Hidden Side of Turkey's Urban Transformation, Told in 10 Pictures

Turkey has been utterly transformed since World War II, when 75 percent of the population lived in the countryside, and just 25 percent occupied its cities. Today, those figures have been reversed. The latest wave of urbanization, over just the past decade, has been accompanied by the rapid construction of roads, mass housing projects, and shopping malls – a building boom that helped propel Turkey's ruling party to another victory in nationwide local elections Sunday.

Though many have hailed Turkey's recent economic progress, frustration with the pace and nature of the changes, especially in Istanbul, also helped fuel last summer’s dramatic street protests. And many people have been left behind, from residents of poor and otherwise marginalized urban neighborhoods slated for renewal to those who remain in largely abandoned rural communities. Take, for example, the empty schools captured around Kastamonu by photographer Melih Cevdet Tekşen, whose work recently won an honorable mention in the American Turkish Society's Young Photographers Award competition.