The socialist and/or global nature of the new town urbanization model

Abstract

The study presents the recent transformations of Hungarian “new” (i.e. socialist) town regions by analyzing manifestations of historical impacts, specifically, “socialist” and global urbanization effects. Based on the spatial distribution (or position) analysis of new town societies, the article demonstrates their diverging and converging aspects from and to European and global urbanization trends. In addition, the study also provides comments on the current relevancy of the historically established new town characteristics. The empirical findings verified the diversification of Hungarian new town regions: they include various development units based on their various economic and sociological characteristics, for instance, their social structural and spatial distribution features. The most advanced town groups adapt more significantly to the global and, particularly, the Western European world than the underdeveloped ones, where the historical diverging effects manifest more spectacularly.