The petty politics of a megaproject in Budapest

Judit Bodnar, Judit Veres

Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesChapterpeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

This chapter looks at the changing politics of urban redevelopment in a politically divided democratic regime following the end of state socialism in 1989. It contrasts the emergence of two cultural institutions of national importance, the Palace of Arts and the National Theatre, as part of a megaproject in Budapest. They emerged almost at the same time as part of the Millennium City Center, a large-scale urban redevelopment project, but have come to stand for two radically opposed worlds dividing the nation and pitting against each other - the cosmopolitans and the nationalists. The research design is that of incorporated comparison; the two case studies are embedded in the analysis of the larger redevelopment project. The study mixes primary and secondary sources; draws on interviews, extensive discussions with architects and planners, as well as an analysis of planning documents, expert reports, and media coverage. It describes the dynamics of private-public partnerships in urban politics pointing to the changing role of the post-socialist state and the new power relations among the various groups involved in urban development in a newly democratizing regime. On the one hand, the analysis shows how local and national-scale political fights make sense from a larger political-economic perspective of waterfront regeneration; on the other, it argues that party politics in politically divided regimes have serious implications on the processes of large-scale urban development, ultimately making them even more under-determined than suggested by the literature. The chapter breaks the assumed unity of the state in studies of urban megaprojects and demonstrates the usefulness of both a scalar analysis and that of the changing political content of the state, which ultimately account for much of the variation in this global genre.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationUrban Megaprojects
Subtitle of host publicationA Worldwide View
PublisherEmerald Group Publishing Ltd.
Pages83-106
Number of pages24
ISBN (Print)9781781905937
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013

Publication series

NameResearch in Urban Sociology
Volume13
ISSN (Print)1047-0042

Keywords

  • Post-socialism
  • Public-private partnerships
  • Urban and cultural politics
  • Urban megaprojects
  • Waterfront developments

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