Rethinking social space in furthering the integration of the city and its countryside: changes in Ferenc Erdei’s concept after 1945: changes in Ferenc Erdei's conception after 1945

Abstract

The study examines the concept of space and society in Ferenc Erdei's work after 1945
by highlighting main changes in the theory. The interpretation focuses on the 1945 Administrative
Reform Plan and the sociography of The City and its Countryside (Város és vidéke), the concluding
piece of his life’s work. The analysis examines speciTc features of Erdei's concept and the ways they relate to his earlier country planning based on the model of farm towns in the Great Plain. It also interprets spatial and social structural  changes that Erdei's concept aimed to achieve. The paper explores how top-down reforms of the socialist regime offered room for manoeuvre to implement the vision of an organic relationship between town and country.

Following the presentation of the farm town model of the Great Plain, the study examines
the administrative reform plan of 1945, and discusses the social and political limitations of the
idea. Furthermore, it reviews the spatial and social structure concept of The City and its Countryside along with the social context of the idea.

This paper takes a critical view on the 1945 administrative reform plan envisioned by Ferenc
Erdei and István Bibó. It argues that the reform idea linked the successful transformation of the
public administration system to the farm town model of the Great Plain. The study points out that
the transformation of the spatial structure of society referring to the grassroots model of localities is a social development model forced on other signiTcantly diUerent sectors. The theory of social relations, the organic nature of spatial structure and local conditions thus aims at the realization of an ideological intention, a model designed to transcend the development of Western and Eastern society. However, in order to do so, it is itself coercive with other traditional areas as it wants to force them on another path of development without accepting their own development trajectories.

The study sees fundamental progress in Erdei’s sociography, The City and its Countryside. Social reform deriving from the peasant spatial and social structure is no longer formulated in this
work exclusively on the basis of the model of the farm towns of the Great Plain, but in all cases it
starts from local conditions. The paper shows that what Erdei had in mind was a well-functioning
center-periphery relationship. According to this, the center built from local conditions regularly
receives feedback about local needs from below. On the other hand, this center is able to build
relationships that go far beyond localities. As a result, a social organization built on localities is
better able to adapt to external challenges. With the metaphore of the star system introduced at
the beginning of the volume, Erdei classifies the whole country into a hierarchy of interdependent
settlements, where the organic organization of the center and its region takes place at different
system levels. The paper emphasizes the virtues of this spatial and social structural model, with
reference to insights of the literature on spatial sociology.