József Lennert (p)

Tamás Hardi

A large portion of internal migration of Hungary is happening between urban centres, their commuting zones and remote areas, and can be described as flows of suburbanisation, amenity migration, economic outmigration and reurbanisation. These processes significantly changed the demographic profile of the affected areas, increased the demographic imbalance of Hungary, and also made an impact on land cover changes. These topics are frequently researched. Naturally, the future outlook of these processes is also at the forefront of interest. Most demographic forecasts give projections at country or regional level, but some methodological approaches enable reliable forecasts in microregional or municipal level too. The demographic forecast I prepared in a preceding research also aimed for high spatial resolution.
However, this preceding projection, as well as similar others, has a shortcoming: they take only migration crossing municipality boundaries into account. The main reasons for the neglection of intra-urban migration are the methodological hardship and lack of useable original data source. However, with an update of my earlier projection methodology, I make an attempt the overcome this shortcoming.
I use agent-based modelling method for demographic projections. To reach my research goals I created an own agent-based model coded in Python language. In order to integrate intra-urban migration into demographic projection, my methodology have to meet certain key criteria. Most importantly, the agents representing the Hungarian inhabitants must have an attribute, which describes the location of their household within a municipality. Moreover, pull and push factors of the migration (attraction for different social groups, accessibility) also have to be determined under city level. This is especially true for dwelling prices, which is a key factor in managing intra-urban migration flows.
To meet these criteria, different components (individual inhabitants, household and family connections, dwellings, plots of land, labour markets) have to be integrated into a unified model. The model requires detailed agent attribute values to be determined. The publicly available aggregated data tables of the population census are used, and an iterative statistical matching procedure has to be utilized.
With the integration of intra-urban migration into the model, I am able to provide a more refined picture not just about the processes of the fringe of the urban cores, but the demographic outlook of the Hungarian agglomerations as a whole as well.

Agnieszka Majorek (p), Joanna Kudełko, Monika Musiał-Malago', Dorota Rynio, Małgorzata Twardzik

József Lennert

The research focuses on the assessment of land-use changes in the urban areas in the context of investment processes in the primary residential real estate market. Investment processes are a determinant of the city's development and reflect the bottom-up market process, pointing to the attractiveness of urban space. The way of using urban areas is the result of the policy implemented by cities. In this context, an important aspect of the study is to verify whether the needs in the primary residential real estate market are met by the changes in the way land is used. The research covers the years 2000-2021 for the six largest cities in Poland.

Gábor Vasárus (p)

Agnieszka Majorek

Urban sprawl affects the rural-urban fringes of post-socialist cities, which are the most dynamically changing areas of the countryside in the Central and Eastern European countries. 55.1% of the population growth of the suburbs of rural centers of Hungary was realized on administratively non-sovereign settlements. The main elements of these areas are the villages incorporated into urban centers before 1990 and scattered habitats nearby the urban fringe. Thus, a part of suburban ring has been built within the administrative borders of the urban centers. For this reason, the national statistical system focusing on the settlement level partially hides the process, which is significantly differentiated even below the settlement level.
According to our hypothesis, due to the unplanned nature of the processes and the lack of management, the environment was severely damaged in these areas, even at this initial stage of sprawl. However, due to the lack of data, the phenomenon has not received enough attention so far.
To test our hypothesis, we investigated two cities from Hungary: Győr, Szeged and Kecskemét. During the analysis, we used qualitative – survey, interview – and quantitative – GIS and statistical analysis of land cover and socioeconomic data – methods to gather key features of the transformation of the fringes.
According to our results, a highly fragmented spatial structure has emerged, due to the lack of local government resources and will. The result of intra-urban suburbanization is environmental degradation and poor-quality living environment and conditions for the new residents.
Wealthy people moving out of the city who wish to live here in a rural idyll. Displaced ones from the city and precariat from rural periphery of Hungary also migrates to outskirts, because low utility costs and gardening are parts of their survival strategy. Thus, the overuse of the landscape by the wealthy families and the harms associated with poverty, such as land-filling and improper land use, simultaneously damage the environment. Segregation is also detrimental to the local community.
The sprawl phenomenon remained partly hidden in previous research due to spatial and statistical peculiarities. The “turn a blind eye” routine of local governments and the legacy of the socialist economy amplify the problems through practically unregulated land-use management. Thus, the issue would require further significant research, see extended abstract.

Tamás Hardi (p)

Gábor Vasárus

Examining the urban sprawl around middle-size cities in Hungary and Central Europe, we should see both sides of this process, on the one hand, the rural change process in the surrounding zones is characterized by counter-urbanization, and on the other hand the process of suburbanization characterized by residential out-migration and at the same time by immigration from the rural areas. These processes have intensified in the former socialist countries after the 2000s and it didn’t treat a number of problems, which have become apparent during the eighties and nineties in Western countries. A fast urban sprawl took place with a low level of special control and planning but under the pressure of economic and financial development. The extent of spatial growth often exceeds the rate of population growth, it is taking place even in the lack of population growth. In our research Romanian, Hungarian, and Slovak regional centres and their surroundings were assessed by GIS methods to define their forms and types of expansions. The examination of the transition of land cover and settlement structures was done by the analysis of aerial photos (orthophotos), CORINE surface coverage database, and land register maps. Auxiliary on-field data records were used to help us make decisions in issues where maps and photos do not provide enough information. Based on these we detected different area types from the aspect of the urbanization process in the research areas. These types reflect the nature and intensity of the urban functions, the physical built-up and appearance moreover the extent and age of occurring changes. In this assessment different physical typologies of urban expansion were defined and analyzed together with historical, social, and economic features of these urban areas creating a combined model to understand these processes. This research is supported by the Hungarian National Research, Development, and Innovation Fund. NKFI-6-K-128703.