TRANSFORMATION OF OUTSKIRTS IN THE HUNGARIAN SETTLEMENS AFTER 1990

Abstract

The Hungarian settlements have a special administrative structure, as they have inner parts (built-up area) and outskirts. It is common that there are inhabited areas at the outskirts as well. The major part of the population lives in the central inner parts of the settlements, but 3% live at the outskirts. During the communist period we could see a sharp decline at the population of the outskirts, they lost more than 70% of their population between 1960 and 1990. After 1990 the population decline of the outskirts stopped, we can see a moderate increase of their population. The demographic trends of the different types of settlements at the outskirts are also different. Some of them had large decline of the population before 1990 and the situation is the same now (manors, individual farmsteads (tanya), gipsy camps). On the other hand, some of the types had decline before 1990 but now we can see increase of the population (wine-hills, hobby gardens, periurban settlements, touristic resources). The location is also an important factor, the outskirts near the large towns have population increase now because of the suburbanization, on the other hand the outskirts of the small towns and rural settlements still have decrease of the population. There are different in-migrants to the outskirts, both the wealthy people and the poor move to the outskirts near the large towns.