Attractiveness of the city, psychological and social capital: Never-ending migration from rural settlements to urban centers in Turkey

Abstract

There is a continuous act of inward migration from rural settlements to urban centers. The attractiveness of the city and the repulsion of the countryside are cited as the reasons for internal migration. This study empirically investigates the attractiveness of the city, which encourages rural migration, and the effect of psychological and social capital on the attractiveness of the city. The cross-sectional data of the study was formed by the face-to-face survey of 280 individuals who live in the rural area of Erzincan and want to migrate to city centers. In the analyzes made with the Structural Equation Modeling, it has been determined that there is a linear relationship between the attractiveness of the city, which encourages rural migration, and positive psychological capital, bonding social capital and bridging social capital.