CONTRIBUTION OF UNDERSTANDING THE EXTENSION OF NEW ECONOMY IN BUDAPEST

Abstract

Extension of new economy is a vigorous factor in the post-fordist urban transformation today. Due to it attracting new economy firms became a significant urban development strategy in lots of European and North-American cities and urban regions. There is an important debate in the international literature about location strategies of the creative firms. According to the results of many international researches beyond the traditional „hard” location factors of new economy firms  they has lots of new „soft” attracting factors by the process of premise selection.

This paper presents the results of a micro-level survey in Budapest among new economy firms. The research questions was the following: What is the age sturcture of employees in new economy firms like? How far commuting employees of the new economy from their workplaces? Which factors attracted new economy firms to choose their location within the city? And do they have cooperation connections with other similar fimrs in the neigbourhood? The sampling method of survey was simple random, and 230 firms answered the questions and they has 6532 employees.

The survey provided three important observations. First, the age structure of new economy firms is youthful in the whole sample. Second, the „soft” attracting factors for firms like aesthetical environment become more significant in Budapest, but the old „hard” factors like accessibility and real estate prices remained dominant ones. Third, the cooperation networks among new economy firms are weak in Budapest.