HOUSING AND THE CITY · Reshaping public and private: new housing estates and urban development in post-1989 Berlin and Budapest

Final Activity Report Summary - HOUSING AND THE CITY (Reshaping Public and Private: New Housing Estates and Urban Development in post-1989 Berlin and Budapest)

The aim of the proposed research project was to compare the recent expansion of new, i.e. post-1989, planned housing developments in the metropolitan areas of Budapest and Berlin. The project was organized around three central questions: 1. the examination of whether new housing developments in post-socialist cities embodied a local version of North-American style gated communities that served the increasing suburbanisation and spatial seclusion of the middle classes. Through studying the origins and diffusion of particular design blueprints and the role of real estate developers and architects in promoting powerful images and spaces of ‘good living’, the project tried to determine to what extent new housing developments in these cities signalled the growing globalisation of residential construction. 2. the impact of these new planned housing developments on the restructuring of public and private spaces in the city, and 3. the significance of housing construction as a tool of urban development at both the city and the district level, as, for instance, in fostering brownfield regeneration and combating sprawl and suburbanisation. The main findings suggested that although new housing developments in post-1989 Berlin and Budapest were influenced by the product concept and growing international appeal of the United States’ style (US-style) gated communities, they were also rooted in local traditions of urban planned housing developments whose history dated back to the late 19th century. Therefore, there were important differences between US-style gated communities and new housing developments in Berlin and Budapest, however a number of differences existed between the two examined European cities as well. In both Berlin and Budapest new planned developments were not a suburban housing type as they are in the United States, but were located in the transition zones of these large urban centres and aimed to slow down the flight of the middle classes away from the city. A significant share of new housing developments was located in former brownfield areas. In fact, the construction of new housing developments was hailed by city governments as a viable strategy of urban regeneration. In Berlin, as well as in Budapest, there was no strong evidence that new housing developments increased residential segregation and contributed to the contraction of urban public space. The impact of new developments on the structuring of public and private spaces remained highly differentiated and could not be described by a linear process of privatisation as suggested by the US experience. Nevertheless, new housing developments indicated higher levels of globalisation and commodification in the case of Budapest, stemming from rapid and complete withdrawal of the state from residential construction, extensive decentralisation in local public planning, stronger presence of foreign developers, dominance of foreign currency mortgages, and very high levels of home ownership.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union