Faurest, Kristin: Ten spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

to the neighbourhood square, not unlike those that affected American cities in the prosperous years after Second World War. Whenever the acquisition of personal wealth becomes not just a possibility but a priority, those whose resources permit it frequently choose to leave their urban neighbourhoods (by car, of course) for more exclusive suburban locales with private gardens. Typical of these developments is that nearly all outdoor areas are allocated to private ownership, with virtually no public spaces.

When private space begins to enjoy priority over public space, a zero-sum game emerges in which our commons inevitably lose something. The public square becomes not the destination of choice but the default destination of those who have no choice.

It is essential to our nature that we seek out places where we encounter other people; this is human instinct, and not a quality that changes with time or politics.

Yet post-war planning on both sides of the Atlantic has contributed to building life almost completely away from urban public spaces. Budapest as a city has lost more than a quarter of a million to the suburbs in recent years, in a process similar to the suburban flight of 1950s and 60s America. Given that many American cities have spent the last couple of decades trying to undo the damage of this period and reclaim and revitalize their downtown neighbourhoods, it is not an exaggeration to say that we ignore the suburbanization process at our own peril.

Budapest's design and evolution were conducive to the formation of multiple small-scale neighbourhood squares, many of which began their lives as markets but evolved into other roles. By their very nature they are local, frequently unknown to those outside of the immediate area. And even within this category of space we find a wealth of diversity in size, atmosphere, function and architecture. The squares of Buda are typically less dense, less urban and less integrated with the surrounding buildings, in District 111, we find marvellous places that meld Socialist-era blocks of flats with perfectly-preserved Baroque ones, with Roman ruins in shouting distance. The inner Pest squares have more architectural unity and less open space, and many bear the indelible mark of the late 19th century's tendency to tear down the old and irregular in favour of the uniformly built-up.

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