Modeling Post-socialist Urbanization: The Case of Budapest

This book examines Budapest’s urban development, planning, and governance between 1990 and 2010. In the face of socialist urbanization’s structural legacies, the recent radical decentralization of government and resources and the impacts of a post-socialist war of ideologies, a trend is analyzed which leads to an urbanization mostly characterized by business-dominated development projects not integrated into any grand urban design.

The author claims this outcome to be typical of the development of post-socialist cities and presents it in an abstract model establishing links between particular historical background conditions and the phenomena of Budapest’s recent urbanization.

With a conversation between Kees Christiaanse, Ákos Moravánszky, and the author.

Daniel Kiss, Assistant Professor Chair Prof. Kees Christiaanse, Institute for Urban Design, ETH Zurich

Daniel Kiss Oberassistent und Dozent für Städtebau am Lehrstuhl Prof. Kees Christiaanse, ETH Zürich