Horváth J. András: A megigényelt világváros. Budapest hatósága és lakossága a városegyesítés éveiben - Disszertációk Budapest Főváros Levéltárából 2. (Budapest, 2010)

Summary

The concept was the same: find respectable citizens in each district and entrust them to fulfil local tasks. But the concept failed. The main problem was that several local duties were increasingly executive and administrative in the ’70s-’80s. This was unacceptable mostly for prestigeous reasons by the majority of the district aldermen. In their reports, we can observe their efforts to implement the metropolis-concept among inhabitants; their thinking-process on these initiations; and as well reactions to people’s demands.

There was a continuous process of getting civil sectors under authority control. The most decisive factor of this process was a change of the quality of personal contacts. The patriarchal character of previous feudal periods were overshadowed, and official persons changed from former assisting-contributory attitude to a certain regulatorily-geared, rigid, executional type of habit.

Basic structural characteristics of the time of unification were maintained unanimously by both the city and the Board of Works. Demands for the developing were as follows:

To maintain the built frame of the city, modifications-régulations tending to minimize;

Conditioning unbuilt grounds at space-cutting on principles;

Exploitation of potential zoning to separate social demands and needs.

The stress to give a compositional character of the city space and validate a sense of order regarding the externals was significant for city politicians. They aimed at applying the orthogonalic net irrespectively to the land, and the regulations’ general orientation was to validate unanimous principles.

It is not right to mention stagnation in this field in spite of the financial depression. This period meant solid advance mainly in staff conditions, professional demands and in a smaller extent for the materials, which can all be regarded as stable base for further achievments of the post turn of the century development. According to the remained archieval material, teachers’ general attitudes of those times were amazingly modern: pedagogical erudition, methodological praxis, pursuit of efficiency, high standard of moral, but mostly discipline. Either the authority or school-teachers could find themselves often unworthy social expectations. Parents’ praxis and school norms clashed frequently. Duality of civilizational norms of officialdom and actual standards of lower social spheres was noticed.

468