Gergely Karacsony founded a housing agency in Budapest. According to the mayor, there will also be space for new apartments in Budapest, for example on the site of abandoned railway areas.
“I see 2030 as better than the other half of this year,” Gergely Karacsony started his speech at the Hungary 2030 conference. At the moment, the provision of basic public services is a daily challenge in Budapest, said the mayor, because the basic financial background necessary for this does not exist. In 2019, Budapest municipality’s income was 0.57% of GDP, compared to just 0.44% last year. “The difference is 90 billion HUF per year. The total cost of renovating metro line 3 is 220 billion HUF, so we will be able to invest this caliber every two years if the government does not withdraw money from us,” Karacsony said.
The mayor – like Tibor Navraxxx – has talked a lot about demographic changes. Budapest’s population is declining, especially its inner-city districts, while that of Pest County has increased by 10 percent in the past ten years, resulting in an urban disaster. “This disaster will cause significant political tensions, in some cities the full banner will be put up,” the mayor said. He sees the reason for this in the fact that real estate prices in Budapest have risen at a world record rate in the past ten years. “It is clear that anyone who wants to secure housing will not attempt to do so in Budapest,” Karacsoni said.
Budapest produces 38 percent of the GDP, and that’s been the case for a long time. There are 1.6 million jobs in the capital, and only 800,000 Budapest residents are actively employed. Half of the workers there do not live in the capital, and half of the driving distance within the city limits is not covered by Budapest residents. Thus capital cannot be explained without agglomeration, and the level of development in the region in the largest sense lags behind the European average. Moreover, the capitals of the Visegrad countries (and surrounding areas) are more developed than Budapest based on the Regional Competitiveness Index (RCI).
The DC Housing Agency is coming
Karacsoni sees the solution in lowering housing costs in Budapest. For this purpose, the Metropolitan Housing Agency will be created, but the mayor spoke little about the goals of the new organization. “New apartments should be built in Budapest, not in places where the investor is interested! There are thousands of hectares to build apartments within the city limits, for example on abandoned railway lands, ”says Karacsoni.
Transport will also be comprehensively changed in the coming years, surprisingly even based on previous city administration plans. Motorists currently account for 40 percent of Budapest’s traffic, and they want to halve that proportion to 20 percent in seven years, while increasing the share of public transport to 50 percent. Air and noise pollution, which also involves the transformation of transportation, should also be improved, Karacsoni said. The per capita green area is currently 6 square meters in the capital, and I would like to increase it to 7 square meters.
