A review of gated communities in some Hungarian cities

Abstract

Modern gated communities first appeared in post-socialist European countries after the fall of Communism. During the transition to a market economy, socio-economic differences have increased immensely across the region and the development of gated communities has brought about a new form of residential segregation. Modern gated communities have no real antecedents in Hungary. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the spread of such communities has been rapid in and around Budapest as well as in many other smaller cities. The largest cities in Hungary - excluding Budapest - have the special administrative status of 'City with County Rights'. Most of the cities in the study had a population over 50,000. We analyzed their gated communities by identifying categories of gated developments and examining the geographical dispersion of the above-mentioned categories. Based on the results, we concluded that the term 'gated community' is used too generally in Hungary, without consideration of the exact definitions applied in the Western world. Significant differences can be observed in the numbers and spatial distribution of gated neighbourhoods amongst the cities which were analyzed. In many settlements they occur in specific spatial patterns which appear to trigger local conflicts. .