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The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a period when artistic endeavours, aimed at expressing a national identity, were thriving in Hungary. The Jewish minority of Budapest also found it important to be present in public spaces. A couple of years after the emancipation of Hungarian Jews, the first statues of Jewish personalities appeared on the streets of Budapest. Who were these statues dedicated to? Who were the artists commissioned, and who paid for them? What were the invisible texts beyond reading the statues as texts? What happened to the public monuments during the Second World War? This paper aims to respond to these questions as a part of a research project mapping Jewish interventions in public art in Budapest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the Budapest staging of a very popular German play in Europe and US at the end of the 19th century that can be regarded as one of the earliest narratives of the cinematic experience in Hungary. Originally published with the title Hans Huckebein in 1897 and written by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg, the play remained outside the horizon of early cinema scholars, although it is a rich inventory of different modes of using and interpreting moving images. The Budapest performance of the play incorporates the screening of a cinema program, including a hitherto unknown (Lumière?) film commissioned by the theatre. The characters and the theatrical audience become film viewers, and this experience is extensively debated on stage. Instantaneous photography and moving image recording allowed for trespassing the boundary between private and public, since the model's consent was not technically required for the recording process. The 'scandal' staged by the play is the presentation of a (moving) image ‒ considered personal and private ‒ in the public space of the cinema. The debate around this scandal contributes to the redefinition of both personal identity, construed increasingly as an image, and the public sphere as a realm of censored images. The article sets out to map the variability of practices and cultural codes ‒ such as theatrical plots, practices of instant and studio photography, personal image protection, copyright ‒ that affected the interpretation and uses of moving images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green network has significantly changed through history due to ideological, functional and geographical reasons. The present paper brings an example of a Hungarian town, Veszprém, where the determining factors are visible through historical (cadastral, military, topographical) maps, historical photo archives and statistical data. The results are compared with the example of the capital, Budapest and put into a European context. It is obvious that after WWII the development of the urban green network in Veszprém is different from European trends. This development can be categorized into 5 periods: Organic growth, Stagnation, Pathfinding, Selective development, Postmodern. The paper not only draws attention to the importance of the characteristics in urban green network development, but also highlights the problem of growing artificial surfaces and decreasing urban green plots in the urban fabric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse and classify urban borderlands. The formation of urban boundaries is influenced by natural, infrastructural, property (social), and urban design principles. Based on the categorisation of urban residual space, the spatial configurations of three regular homogeneous residential areas (historical, socialist-modern, contemporary) in Budapest are presented by combining a quantitative and qualitative approach. The role and presence of their boundaries in the city are explored through map-based and SpaceSyntax analysis. In addition, their qualitative attributes – such as lost space, neglected space, liminal space, and border vacuums – are introduced based on the literature and fieldwork. The objective of this research is to draw attention to under-represented and undermanaged urban situations, in order to better understand the impacts of borderlands on the use of space and their role in creating spatial segregation. Moreover, in post-socialist cities like Budapest, the analysis of these spaces is crucial for further complex and successful urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature demonstrates that the accessibility of urban green spaces may differ across ethnic, minority, racial, and socioeconomic groups. In post-socialist Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, income has become the most critical factor influencing where people may reside in a city, as well as to the extent to which they can access city services. This paper investigates socioeconomic disparities in access to green areas in Budapest, Hungary, taking multiple types of green areas into account, such as urban green spaces (e.g., urban parks and gardens), urban forests, and residential greenery (e.g., private gardens and street trees). People's incomes were considered a proxy measure for socioeconomic status, and the spatial distribution of green areas were analyzed with geographic information system (GIS) tools. The results show that the advantage of wealthier people in terms of urban green space provision is not so pronounced, which is the outcome of a multi-layered historical urban development. However, considering the accessibility of urban forests and residential greenery, high-income people are in a more favorable position than those from other socioeconomic groups. In addition, geography seems to be a crucial constraint for high- and upper-middle income inner-city residents to access urban forests and residential greenery, indicating that factors outside of socioeconomic status influence access to green areas. Future planning policies should attempt to alleviate inequalities in green area provision; however, some inherited and recent issues may jeopardize municipalities' ability to achieve this goal. • This paper investigates socioeconomic disparities in access to green areas in Budapest. • We demonstrated that wealthy people are somewhat privileged in terms of access to green areas. • We found that previous planning regimes have impacted the current spatial patterns of green areas. • Three risk factors were detected that can jeopardize the improvement of urban green space provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security and a sense of security are both determining factors of everyday comfort. However, perceptions of fear and learnt associations (i.e., where and of what and whom one is afraid) may distort our perspective of urban security and may complicate the choice of reasonable security measures. Nonetheless, according to critical theorists, reasonability regarding to measures of security is crucial when it comes to public space, as public space is an indispensable component of democracy that cannot be maintained either without regulations or with its over-securitization and the excessive presence of the state. CCTV cameras have been one of the most widespread tools in international policy making that have been favoured especially in urban areas without critical reflection over the last couple of decades and continues to be a rarely questioned element of urban security strategies. Their numbers continue to grow, and their implementation enjoys significant national funds internationally--and in Hungary in particular--regardless of the lack of impact assessment that would support the burgeoning of this expensive tool. Embedded in the international public-space discourse, this paper aims to highlight some of the pitfalls of impact assessment analysis of CCTV installations by drawing on data from a few districts of Budapest. This study also aims to make some suggestions for the development of relevant impact assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses of the Living Memorial: a counter-monumental installation located since 2014 in the highly contested Szabadság ('Liberty') Square in central Budapest, Hungary. The focus on the LM allows showcasing it as a unique type of commemorative installation that not only contests the current Hungarian top-down, hegemonic narrations and practices of memory but also counteracts the country's politicised and ideologised narrations of the past. The LM is explored as a dialogical 'nexus' of, on the one hand, individual, lived experiences of the Holocaust in Hungary in 1944–45 and, on the other, of the wider historical and contemporary socio-historical narratives as well as commemorating practices. Presented in the article – and set against the wider input from memory and commemoration research – the systematic, discourse-ethnographic analysis of the Living Memorial links its discursive and visual as well as spatial aspects with the exploration of various types of spectator engagement. In doing so, the article connects the wider context of memory and commemoration in the national and city spaces – and specifically in the often strongly politicised capital milieus – to the specific, localised contexts of 'commemorative battlegrounds' wherein 'official' displays of memory clash with, and are opposed by, their bottom-up, counterhegemonic contestations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban‐induced habitat conversion drastically changes soil life in a variety of ways. Soil sealing, human disturbance, habitat fragmentation, industrial and vehicular pollution are the main causes of urban soil degradation. Soil arthropods, as one of the most abundant and diverse group of soil fauna, are involved in many soil processes that are of great importance in maintaining soil health and multifunctionality. Nevertheless, soil quality is still mainly characterized by physical, chemical, and microbiological parameters. Here, we assessed and compared the biological soil quality in woody (REF: reference forest, REM: remnant forest) and nonwoody (TURF: public turfgrass, and RUD: ruderal habitat) types of urban green spaces along a disturbance and management intensity gradient in the Budapest metropolitan area (Hungary), using community metrics and soil arthropod‐based indicators. Vegetation cover and landscape characteristics of study sites were quantified through vegetation and urbanization indices, respectively. Basic soil properties, total and bioavailable concentrations of the main heavy metals (Cd, Co, Hg, Ni, Zn) were also measured. Acari, Collembola, and Hymenoptera (mainly Formicidae) were the most abundant groups. Litter‐dweller taxa, particularly Protura, proved to be the most sensitive to urban disturbance. Representatives of Hemiptera, Diptera, Symphyla, and Pauropoda were common in low densities. The taxonomic diversity of soil arthropod assemblages in nonwoody and woody habitats was similar. Although the integrated faunal indices showed no differences among soil habitat types, they provided different responses and, consequently, different information. Our findings demonstrated that the biological quality and arthropod community structure of soils were strongly impacted by soil C/N and heavy metal contamination. We found that low and moderate levels of pollution have adverse effects on edaphic fauna, suggesting biological degradation of soils, even below pollution limits. Nevertheless, more disturbed urban green spaces have been shown to play a significant role in maintaining belowground biodiversity, thereby soil functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discovery of human mobility patterns of cities provides invaluable information for decision-makers who are responsible for redesign of community spaces, traffic, and public transportation systems and building more sustainable cities. The present article proposes a possibilistic fuzzy c-medoid clustering algorithm to study human mobility. The proposed medoid-based clustering approach groups the typical mobility patterns within walking distance to the stations of the public transportation system. The departure times of the clustered trips are also taken into account to obtain recommendations for the scheduling of the designed public transportation lines. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is revealed in an illustrative case study based on the analysis of the GPS data of Taxicabs recorded during nights over a one-year-long period in Budapest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Doreen Massey, space is a challenge of multiplicity, encounter and relation: a 'throwntogetherness' that demands ongoing negotiation. Space, Massey argues, is open—it is capable of being made otherwise. Drawing on Massey's ideas, this essay reflects on the everyday political work of community projects to open up space for new possibilities of living with difference within hostile political environments. Through a combination of ethnographic storytelling, photography and diagrammatic sketches, I follow 'stories-so-far' from the Auróra community centre in Budapest, Hungary and its members' project to build a community garden. Rather than focus on prevailing discourses which frame Hungarian politics as a battle between an illiberal government and a liberal opposition, I shift attention to everyday experiences of this hostile political environment by examining projects as mundane and local techniques through which community groups describe, assemble, and work on their own better possible futures. In so doing, I also argue for a praxeological, rather than ontological reading of Massey's work: rather than presuming a priori that all space is open, we should follow Massey in analysing the situated and ongoing 'terms of engagement' through which people open up—and close down—better possible spaces and better ways of living with difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provision of urban green spaces (UGS) within a reasonable walking distance/time for each resident has become a major challenge of urban planning. We provide a novel method to map the availability of UGS for different socio-economic groups in cities using a demand–supply composite index (DSCI). Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, has been chosen to test how the DSCI works. The results show significant differences in the availability of UGS for people living in different neighborhood types. Furthermore, findings reveal that regardless of which type of residential area is considered, young and middle-aged people with higher per capita income are more likely to access UGS. As the demographic and socio-economic structure of the population is continuously changing in the different neighborhood types and so is the demand for UGS, urban planners should carefully monitor societal changes and elaborate interventions to help improve the availability and accessibility of UGS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]