THE SPECIFICS OF COMMUNITY GARDENS IN HUNGARY AS A RESULT OF THE POST-SOCIALIST TRANSITION

Abstract

The post-socialist cities of Hungary experienced significant social-spatial changes in the past two and a half decade. These changes are the consequence of the transition and the integration to the global economy. It created a situation in which the local governments had to recognize their own role in mitigating the negative and enhancing positive effects of these changes. In this context, in 2011 the first community garden has appeared in Budapest, Hungary.

 In this research, I intend to answer two questions. Firstly, where community gardens appeared in Hungary? And why community gardens appeared in post-socialist Hungary? To answer my questions, I carried out an online and a field research. After the initial online research, I have conducted interviews with the organizers of the gardens. As a result, 45 community gardens have been discovered in Hungary and 34 community gardens participated in the research, 18 interviews were made.

I came to the conclusion that community gardens were dominantly organized in high rise neighbourhoods on the properties of local governments, by the local governments or in cooperation with them by civil organizations. This shows, that the organizing of Hungarian community gardens is the opposite of the original North-American bottom-up route. The significant governmental support of community gardens in Hungary suggests that local governments realized the potential in community gardens. They use them to improve their position in the competition among cities for capital, investments and human resources through improving soft factors. Besides, they use them to mitigate the negative effects of the post-socialist transition. Thus I believe that community gardens in Hungary are the results of the post-socialist transition, and the braod acceptance of entrepreneur attitudes in the government.