Index – Domestic – Dávid Vitézy does not agree with Matolcsy on the future of Budapest
Dávid Vitézy, CEO of the Budapest Development Center (BFK), disagrees with György Matolcsy on the issue of the division of the capital. The chief executive said he understood the problem, but said the central bank governor “didn’t grab the problem where it should”.
According to Dávid Vitézy, if the question were put to a referendum, everyone living in the district would vote to keep their place of residence in Budapest. He therefore notes that György Matolcsy it raises many real problems, including real problems with fragmented competencies and a lack of thinking in systems.
It can only be seen in my own area, in transport: many hundreds of thousands of people come to Budapest every day to work from other settlements, the vast majority of them by car – the unsustainable situation and deteriorating area of Budapest is now at least 3.5 million regions based on daily commuting habits
Said Dávid Vitézy a BudaPestkörnyéke.huto. He explained that two types of administrative response were possible:
- regional, stronger co-operation between Budapest and its wider urban area, but with the transfer of some of today’s capital competencies to the regional level, Budapest itself is smaller;
- let Budapest be bigger than it is now, and in the 1950s, new, read-out settlements will be included.
He emphasized that the idea of an inner small capital is also present in Europe, however, the administrative structure in Hungary has been established and guaranteed by two-thirds of the law, and this has never worked in Hungary before. He added:
the relationship between the districts, the capital and the agglomeration, which is completely unique and very far from perfect, will not in itself be resolved if Budapest is not as big as it is.
Regarding public transport in Budapest, he said that the capital and the Budapest Transport Center, which he now exclusively supervises, have no political legitimacy to operate transport alone, as they do not elect a mayor in agglomerations. The capital does not have the funding to carry out agglomeration tasks either. This can only be done in cooperation with the state and the capital, the CEO added.
He also mentioned that the Budapest Agglomeration Railway Strategy adopted by the Hungarian government will create unprecedented fixed-track developments in the Budapest suburbs, but this will alleviate only one of the problems of transport and urban planning.
It only makes sense to do the whole agglomeration rail strategy if, at the same time, we guarantee that this problem will not repeat itself.
Dávid Vitézy added. he says to leave greenfield housing projects without the right infrastructural background because the proliferation of the metropolitan area of the capital is unsustainable. And houses built on parceled arable land are cheaper because the builders do not pay for the construction of transport, utilities and education infrastructure, it is a political problem due to the suddenly swelling population, and the price of underdeveloped urban planning investments is borne by taxpayers.
(Cover image: Dávid Vitézy. Photo: Gorondy-Novák Edit / Index)