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Comment by pixel3234 | Hacker News Reader

So far quite opposite is happening. Until about 15 years ago, Istanbul was very cosmopolitan city. You could meet people from all corners of Africa, Asia and Europe there. Even locals looked very white because of all slaves Ottomans brought into Istanbul. To some extend Istanbul was culturally not part of Turkey (something like London and UK).

Hovewer over last decade or so, Istanbul is being assimilated into Turkey. Many orthodox muslim turkish immigrants from east part of Turkey. More radicals... Foreigners are not so welcomed anymore...

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> Foreigners are not so welcomed anymore...

That's a weird thing to say given that Turkish people themselves are complaining that Istanbul (in particular Fatih, which was the center of Constantinople) is being taken over by Arabs and Africans (Sub-Saharan). That seemed true to me a year ago when I was there. Are you sure you are not mistaking Arabs for Turks? The Turks I met are mostly white and the one living in Istanbul are quite "cosmopolitan".

> To some extend Istanbul was culturally not part of Turkey (something like London and UK).

This is a bit off topic, but I don't think it's right to say that London is not culturally part of the UK. As the only very large city London has its own identity, but I don't think you can usefully assign an identity to the UK or England minus London. The bigger divide lies along age, class, and education.

So Manchester, Bristol, and many of the university cities end up being more culturally similar to inner London. They are all places younger people with degrees move for education and employment and many spend a decade in London starting their careers after finishing their degrees elsewhere, before moving on again to find more space for a family.

Then on the other side of the divide you have parts of outer east London like Dagenham which are perhaps more culturally similar to other struggling post-industrial places like Stoke or Middlesborough.

This has more in common with Austin, Texas. Everyone is grumpy about all the people moving there, but the vast, vast majority are moving there from other parts of Texas rather than out of state.

That sounds incredibly unlikely to me. Or, I suppose it could make sense, but only under a couple of circumstances:

1. Each year’s crop of UT students constitutes a large fraction of Austin transplants. But that doesn’t seem possible, as I can’t imagine that’s more than 20k a year.

2. Most transplants are from Texas, but every other Texas metro is experiencing similar intra-state migration, and so every big city in Texas is hollowing out the state’s hinterlands.

> because of all slaves Ottomans brought into Istanbul.

The genetic makeup of Anatolia did not change that much due to the Turkic invasion. Moat people in Turkey are still descendants of the Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and other who lived there for thousands of years before the invasions.

Citation needed.

For what?

There was a significant influx from the Balkans and Ukrainian steppes etc. during the the Ottoman period due to the extensive importation of slaves.

But otherwise the Turkish population at least in the west and most other coastal regions os indistinguishable from the rest of the Mediterranean region genetically.

Why they are immigrants if they are Turkish citizens? Moreover, orthodox muslims are not radicals. There are many differences between them.

Is it that foreigners are less welcome, or is it that anyone with other options for places to live is leaving the country to avoid the tanking ecomomy?

For an western expat it is more difficult to move to Turkey. Administrative and government stuff. Economy as well.

Yeah, culturally identical to Europe like how there are all those mosques everywhere.

But a lot less headscarves than today.

Visited France or UK recently? :)

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