CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Jelinek, Csaba |
|---|---|
| Title | State-led Gentrification and Relocation in Budapest: Vacating a House in Ferencvaros |
| Summary | Since the early 1990s the local version of the globalized urban strategy of gentrification has been present in the Hungarian capital, Budapest as well (see for example Tomay 2007), mainly in the forms of “urban rehabilitation” projects. The former industrial and working class district called Ferencváros has experienced the longest and most pervasive “urban rehabilitation” project in Budapest, resulting in a peculiar state-led gentrification of the area. More than 2000 families have been gradually relocated in the last two decades by the local government. My thesis focuses on Ferencváros, in order to analyze the personal and social consequences of the local governmental orchestrated relocation of the dwellers. I will argue that though their relocation is an essentially different process from the classical cases of displacement described in North-American cities (see Marcuse 1985), in its effects they have considerable similarities. The argument of the paper is based on a qualitative methodological apparatus. Apart from an ethnographic case-study about the “vacating” of a house with fifty families and the following-up of the relocated dwellers, I conducted interviews with the important actors from the local government as well. Apart from these qualitative data I analyzed statistics about the history of “urban rehabilitation” in Ferencváros. The results show that though in public discourse “urban rehabilitation” is depicted as a positive output of the local policies, it is rather a Janus-faced process through which social polarization and spatial segregation are increased. |
| Supervisor | Bodnar, Judit; Kowalski, Alexandra |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/jelinek_csaba.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University