from the
collectivization of agricultural lands.

Each major movement has brought about some improvement over the
conditions of the period that preceded it. Settlement in the back hills
was particularly necessary during the last years of Turkish control,
when the Ottoman Empire was in decline and its local controls and
taxation became increasingly oppressive. To avoid attracting attention
to themselves, the people settled into small hamlets and built their
homes as bare and unattractive as possible.

With independence life on the plains was safer and easier. For a time
there was plenty of good land available but, as the population grew,
inevitably the land became occupied, and the size of individual
landholdings decreased. Between the turn of the century and the
mid-1980s, for example, the average landholding decreased from 18.2 to
12.2 acres, a size that was agriculturally uneconomic and that
overpopulated the rural areas. People remained poor and, although it was
no longer necessary to keep them plain, peasant homes amounted to little
more than small, bare, essential shelter.

Under the communist government, the first near-complete collectivization
program served to increase the size of farmland units in collective and
state farms to an average of about 10,000 acres each. In 1970, with an
average of less than 1,100 fully employed farmers at each of the larger
units, the ratio of farmers to acres of arable land had fallen sharply.
In 1973 the agricultural lands were again recombined, this time into
about 170 units called agroindustrial complexes. The rural population is
still, however, for the most part clustered in unplanned, nucleated
villages or hamlets. Long, single-street villages are rare. Many
villages are situated in valleys for shelter from cold winter winds. A
gradual movement to housing at the agroindustrial centers will
undoubtedly take place, but there was no indication in 1973 that the
movement would be a rapid one or that the government intended to make it
a matter of urgent priority.

Post-World War II emphasis on educational and cultural pursuits and
rural development has made more community life and more amenities
available to the rural areas. Dwelling space remains meager, with only a
little more than 500 feet of floorspace per dwelling. By 1970 central
water supplies were available to over 90 percent of the population, but
fewer than one half of the dwellings had individual service. Nearly all