Urbs - Magyar várostörténeti évkönyv 5. (Budapest, 2010)
Recenziók
514 Abstracts industrial projects. This policy changed only after the adoption of a new urban development concept in 1970: villages which had long fulfilled a small-town role were finally granted town status. Nonetheless, up to the end of the 1980s, Hungary still had more places serving the functions of towns than it had official “towns”. That was a decade of deepening economic and ideological crisis, when the state became increasingly less able to provide the subsidies that came with the title of “town”. In 1983, the conditions for acquiring the title of “town” were relaxed, and by the time of Hungary’s transition in 1990, all “functional” towns had officially been recognised as “actual” towns. The Local Authorities Act of 1990 radically eased the conditions for recognition of towns, and town rank gradually ceased to be associated with any practical advantages. The result was an acceleration in the granting of town status, which is now (in 2010) held by 328 places. Even on a generous assessment, however, the number of these which actually provide town-like functions is no more than 200. CSABA ZOLTÁN NOVÁK Spatial planning in 1970s-1980s Romania Nicolae Ceaucescu conceived - and thoroughly executed - a spatial planning scheme which was far more radical and irreversible than that of any other country in the socialist block. The objective was clear: to subordinate and organise the population to the needs of industrialisation, to run society according to a planned system, and to create social homogeneity, putting an end to the customs and cultural individuality of regions, to the traditional living space. Romanian spatial planning had two sell-defined target areas: villages and towns, and the plans for the latter were carried through almost to completion. Romanian spatial planning was drawn up in principle in 1968, and executed in several phases. The first specific plans were produced in the early 1970s, and their practical implementation accelerated in the second half of the 1980s. The first phase was more thoroughly thought out than was customary at the time, and there was some minimal consensus with the local elites. As the dictatorship tightened its grip in the 1980s, spatial planning became much more radical, disorganised and centralised, and frequently showed signs of being rushed.
