Local governments and suburbanization

Abstract

There have been significant social and economic changes in the agglomeration around Budapest in the last two decades or more. One of the key causes of these changes was suburbanisation, the great number of residents and institutions moving to suburban areas – mostly from Budapest. Nevertheless the process of suburbanisation was unevenly spread over the agglomeration. This paper presents the findings of research which focused – among the many possible reasons – on the role of local governments, and the possible courses of action the leaders of suburban settlements could take.

Community leaders were able to react in different ways to suburbanisation as it evolved. The process had serious consequences for the lives of the dwellers, therefore it did matter at what pace and in what way it was handled. The political leaders could draw up concepts and elaborate strategies to supervise or influence the processes, basically fostering or hindering immigration. The attitude of local governments towards taking in more inhabitants was by no means uniform. Local governments did not want to and were not able to attract such new inhabitants and institutions to the same degree, and their strategies were not equally successful either.

This study examined four selected settlements in the agglomeration (2 settlements which are located next to each other but developed differently: Pilisborosjenő and Üröm, on the western side of the agglomeration area, near to Budapest, and 2 other settlements, Veresegyház and Vácrátót, on the eastern side and farther away from Budapest) using the case study method to learn more about local governments and their opportunities and strategies.

The case studies revealed that local leaders had the most important role in local processes and effects of suburbanisation. There were some means which the local leaders could utilise, the most significant of these tools were land and zoning policies and institutional and infrastructural development. Evidence shows that the attitude of the local government leadership had a key role in demanding available local funding and in its successful use.

The main elements of these differing attitudes were: consciousness of local government leadership, cooperation among local government leaders, extension and usage of local leaders’ relationship networks, “courage”, creativity and imagination of local government leadership. Moreover, it became clear that the settlement-related strategies concerning migration differed from each other to a great extent, regarding not only their goals and means, but also how wellconsidered, circumspect or elaborate they were. These significant differences had a profound effect on how successful they were.

However, the paper highlights that local leaders basically set up their strategies in line with how to develop their communities the best. The primary focus was on improving infrastructure. Initially, to attract newcomers or new ventures was secondary. But during strategy discussions they concluded that receiving more people or companies could be a good method to enhance community development.