Sample Cause and Effect Essay

Cause and Effect Essay MIGRATION TO BIG CITIES Migration from rural areas or small towns to big cities is more often than not involuntary, because people have traditional and sentimental attachments to their places of living. Their ancestors, family home and childhood memories tie them down to one place all their life, even for generations, if possible. However, political conflicts, unemployment and a general desire for a better life sometimes force people out of their hometowns into the metropolises. They leave their memories, heirlooms and a bit of their heart in search of a bright future for their children. Many towns and villages are still completely deserted in eastern Anatolia despite the relocation efforts of the government. In the course of the last three decades, some places have turned into ghost towns on account of PKK troubles. Locals have been driven out, forced to evacuate their village under suspicion of aiding and abetting PKK militants. The same happened to Kurds in northern Iraq persecuted by the Saddam regime. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, they chose defection which is a type of forced migration. The political unrest inevitably takes its toll on the economy. Basically, the economic repercussions of political and social strife is lack of investments on the part of the entrepreneurs who choose to invest their money in safer regions or simply banks rather than risk it in the troubled eastern and southeastern Turkey. In the nearly complete absence of industrial enterprises, the only alternative way of making a living is agriculture and animal farming. However, farming is not exactly a lucrative business either. It requires expensive machinery, fertilizers, chemical supplements and pesticides, seeds and animal feed among other necessities all of which also depend on well-trained farmers to operate and manage. Government subsidies for agriculture are hardly sufficient incentives to keep farmers in business. Government is also the biggest buyer, but usually at such low prices that barely enable farmers to sow again the following year. In the local markets, there is no guarantee that they will find buyers. Moreover, by the time their produce find its way to our street market, it goes through a long chain of middlemen who make the real profit instead of the rightful owners of that produce i.e. the farmers who put a lot of effort and money into harvesting them. So, even though unemployment is a common socio-economic problem around the country, it is especially rampant in the countryside. This results in people placing their hopes of finding employment in big cities. The types of employment to be found in cities are either menial, unskilled work in small to middle enterprises or office work demanding qualified personnel. For the latter, a high school diploma is a minimum requirement. A college degree is always preferable these days, though. Since most universities, especially the good ones are located in big cities, people desiring a better future for their children feel compelled to move to big cities to prepare them for a university education which can be achieved after long years of cumulative study. By going to school in big cities like Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, students can have a better chance of a place in a reasonably good university. So although displacement is a very traumatic experience for almost everybody, and life in big cities is no picnic due to metropolitan problems such as over-crowdedness, traffic, high cost of living, high crime rate and environmental pollution, migration may sometimes seem to be the best option in the face of certain hardships that rural life entails.