On the edge of new public spaces - city-centre renewal and exclusion in Kaposvár, Hungary

Abstract

In this paper we intend to analyse the effects of European and Hungarian urban policies with special attention to the consequences of neoliberalisation on marginalised groups. In the first part we demonstrate how neoliberalisation evolved in Hungarian policies. Next we analyse the revanchist turn of urban rehabilitation programmes, then we demonstrate the strengthening exclusion mechanisms of the rehabilitation projects through a case study in Kaposvar (Hungary) where anti-homeless regulations changed the survival strategies of marginalised people. With this research we intended to answer two questions. Firstly, how the class relation reproduction projects and processes of the neoliberal urban policies appeared in the Hungarian policies? And, secondly, how the processes that can be linked with inner-city regeneration can be interpreted in the light of the use of public spaces and the survival strategies of homeless? We illustrate the above mentioned local changes and the discourse of exclusion (as Hungarian manifestation of revanchist urbanism) through a case study. The research is based on narrative and life-path interviews with homeless of Kaposvar, and with experts, as well as members of the local political and cultural elite. Furthermore, we made participant observations to observe the consequences of the aspirations of local political elite.