Boundless settlements – tendencies and future of urban sprawl in the agglomeration of Budapest

Abstract

The Budapest agglomeration is a rapidly changing environment. Urban sprawl has been a prominent process in municipalities around the Hungarian capital, and its pace has significantly increased since the change of regimes. In our paper, we analyse the tendencies of urban development, the role of territorial protection and the types of land use mostly threatened by urban sprawl in two study areas within the Budapest agglomeration. A significant part of the Northern study area – located on Szentendre Island – is under territorial protection, while the Southern study area – located on Csepel Island – has a considerably lower amount of protected areas. We found that the settlements of the Northern study area have been expanding at a much slower pace than their Southern counterparts, where in the absence of effective restrictions, extensive areas – mostly former agricultural fields – have been converted into built-up areas. In addition, the Spatial Plan of the agglomeration allows the same tendencies to continue in both areas in the future as well.

Suburban Sustainability in Budapest Agglomeration – the Case of Törökbálint

“…The suburbanization and urban sprawl around Budapest have been extensively examined in the recent scientific literature using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods across various disciplines. These studies cover a wide range of topics from general ones [64][65][66][67][68][69] to concerning specific aspects, such as spatial decentralization [70], compactness [71], socio-economic segregation [72], power relations [73], regional planning [74], suburban creativity [61,75], suburban communities [76,77], suburban peripheries [78], post-Fordist polycentric spatial structure [79], effects of COVID [80], and inner-peripheral [81] and ecological [82,83] sustainability. Only the crucial characteristics needed for comprehending the subsequent analyses will be outlined according to recent accounts [61,69].…”

Suburban Sustainability in Budapest Agglomeration—The Case of Törökbálint

“…The suburbanization and urban sprawl around Budapest have been extensively examined in the recent scientific literature using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods across various disciplines. These studies cover a wide range of topics from general ones [64][65][66][67][68][69] to those concerning specific aspects, such as spatial decentralization [70], compactness [71], socio-economic segregation [72], power relations [73], regional planning [74], suburban creativity [61,75], suburban communities [76,77], suburban peripheries [78], post-Fordist polycentric spatial structure [79], the effects of COVID [80], and inner-peripheral [81] and ecological [82,83] sustainability. Only the crucial characteristics needed for comprehending the subsequent analyses will be outlined according to recent accounts [61,69].…”

Every Start is Challenging: Fitting A New Artificial Lake Into the Landscape, Zalakaros, Hungary

“…Due to the rapid succession of water-related habitats and the intense, diverse demand of utilization, the ecological conditions and the environment of the new lakes change at a quick pace (Hall and Härkönen, 2006). In the interest of landscape sustainability (Musacchio, 2013;Wu, 2011) and the protection and improvement of the ecosystem services of the lake and the lake-shore (Vinkó et al 2012), changes must be carefully arranged (Boromisza et al, 2015;Illyés et al, 2016). In the course of this, it is equally required to mitigate the probable environmental impacts, to ecologically fit the new landscape feature (lake) into the landscape, to serve the needs of the society (Moss, 2007), to discover the natural values and to schedule the maintenance tasks (Mészáros, 2016).…”