Urbs - Magyar várostörténeti évkönyv 5. (Budapest, 2010)
Recenziók
Abstracts 515 ISTVÁN FEITL The Hungarian urban “lobby” Changes of power and influence in the socialist era The first part of this paper traces the reasons for the blocking of regional interests in the years following the introduction of the system of socialist councils. Even after 1953, under the government of Imre Nagy, the situation changed (through the 1954 Councils Act) only to the extent that towns were removed from the járások (districts) budget and Budapest was assigned a status of its own. After 1956, the relationship between central and local government gradually transformed. A policy of decentralisation prevailed, and there was a major distinction in the status of town and village councils. The town was not subordinated to the járás and had wider powers. The ideological grounds for promoting the interests of towns was the increasingly widely-held philosophy of urbanisation. This put forward an alternative to both industrialisation and the village way of life, which was regarded as backward. An “urban lobby” emerged from an intellectual base of institutions and forums established during the nineteen sixties by academics working in the field of urbanisation. These were the Hungarian Institute for Regional Development (VÁTI), the Hungarian Society for Urban Planning (MUT) and the journal Városépítés. Government decisions on regional planning during the 1970s further shifted the advantage to towns. This resulted in the decline of some villages. Unlike in Romania, where this tendency continued in the 1980s, political affairs developed differently in Hungary and, primarily through the intervention of sociologists, the system of allocation which benefited towns was corrected in favour of villages. Finally, the paper covers Budapest’s success in establishing, by the 1970s, a priority position among towns.
