| Abstract: | One of the major developments in post-socialist cities is the increasing outflow of people from the city to the surrounding settlements. Budapest is a case in point. The agglomeration used to receive migrants coming to live and work in the capital (i.e., rural urbanization). After the political and economic changes of the 1980s and 1990s, the suburban area around Budapest has received people moving out of the city. Macro statistics from the Hungarian Statistical Office show that suburbanization is unevenly spread over the agglomeration. Some settlements have a dynamic building policy and a growing population, while other settlements have moderate building programmes and a stagnating or even declining population. This pattern cannot be explained simply by preferences—i.e., where people would like to live. More precise explanations can be based upon housing construction opportunities, availability of building sites, and the attitude of local governments towards suburban development. This paper is based on analyses of micro data derived from the Budapest Agglomeration household survey, conducted in July 1997. Our results show that suburbanization around Budapest is spatially a highly segregated process. Higher-status people and lower-status people have different destinations and tend to cluster in homogeneous areas, as they did in the city. Suburbanization seems to be a radial process; people tend to cross the city boundary at the shortest distance and settle in one of the nearest settlements. The moves from the city to the suburbs are initiated by the desire to adapt the housing and neighbourhood situations to the aspirations of the household. The change of job is less important as a reason. Job motives, however, are important for households moving into the agglomeration from elsewhere. This rural urbanization process is rather strong in the Eastern zone, implying that rural urbanization has not come to an end. Drs. Herman Kok is real estate consultant with NEI-Kolpron International BV and is assigned to Kolpron Budapest Ltd. Dr. Zoltán Kovács is senior researcher at the Geographical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. |
