Metropolitan region building and territorial development in Budapest: the role of national policies

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of national policies in the process of metropolization and metropolitan region building in Budapest. In the long term, the example of Budapest clearly shows the twists and turns of national policy-making between concentration to increase competitiveness and equal distribution designed to enhance social integration. The geographical and geopolitical position of Budapest has altered significantly since the collapse of communism. From the periphery of Moscow, the city and its hinterland became a political, economic and cultural centre of Central Europe. Therefore, it is an intriguing question if national policies actively build on the role of Budapest as engine of economic restructuring and a gateway to the global flows of capital and innovation. The paper provides a critical analysis of current policies with special attention to the process of metropolitan region building. As research findings show, policy-making in Hungary has not focused on metropolisation and metropolitan region building in the last two decades. Policy-making has had a clear follow-up character and decision-makers from the administrative side could not efficiently contribute to metropolisation and enhance the competitiveness of the metropolitan region.

A városrehabilitáció társadalmi sokszínűségre gyakorolt hatásainak térbeli-társadalmi vizsgálata Józsefvárosban

“…A rendszerváltozást követően a térség átalakuló nagyvárosaiban rendkívül gyors ütemű heteropolizáció vette kezdetét. A térbeli-társadalmi szerkezetet tekintve komplex és heterogén városok jöttek létre, melyeket nagyfokú sokszínűség jellemez (Gentile et al 2012, Egedy et al 2017.…”

“…Az újjáépítés eredményeként modernizált városközpontok számos, korábban hiányzó funkciót hordozó épületállománnyal (például bevásárlóközpontok, irodaépületek, szállodák), továbbá jelentősen átalakított köz-és közösségi terekkel (például sétáló övezetek, parkok) gazdagodtak. A városrekonstrukció szinte mindenütt az iparosított építészeti technológiák térnyeréséhez és a lakótelepek elterjedéséhez vezetett (Egedy-Kovács 2005). Ebben az időszakban nem volt lényegi különbség a nyugati és keleti blokk városfelújító gyakorlata között.…”

Metropolitan region policies in the European Union: following national, European or neoliberal agendas?

“…Minor cities face major challenges in order to survive in a 'metropolitan world' (Lux 2015, 23). Historically, Hungarian regional policy has always been controversial and has been characterized by rapidly shifting policy objectives either supporting the growth and international visibility of Budapest or trying to reduce its overweight in the national urban system (see Egedy, Kovács, and Kondor 2016). At least since 2007, the Hungarian Government implemented a regional development policy targeting six further development poles additional to Budapest in order to achieve a more balanced territorial structure and to achieve European visibility with strong urban centres.…”

“…However, this and various further attempts to counterbalance the concentration on the capital region and achieve a more balanced spatial development in Hungary were not successful, and socio-spatial polarization has been increasing in the past years with Budapest as single dominating core. Furthermore, as regional policy has followed the principle of de-concentrated concentration, areas outside of the few bigger agglomerations have continuously lost government support (Egedy, Kovács, and Kondor 2016), leading to increasing peripheralization.…”

The Influence of the Polish-Russian Border on the Development Opportunities of the Polish Border Region

“…Looking at the substantial changes in the importance of regions in the analysed part of Europe, two processes become apparent. The first one is an increase in the importance of metropolitan areas, especially those comprising the national capitals (Egidy, 2017;Salukvadze and Golubchikov, 2016). The second one is the decline and depopulation of various regions, including the rural ones situated peripherally (Kriaučiūnas et al, 2014;Mladenov and Ilieva 2012).…”