NEO-LIBERAL EUROPEAN URBAN POLICY VS. LOCAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY IN THE PERIPHERY – CASE OF GYULA

Abstract

The theoretical framework of Hungarian urban development was „urban/local competition” after the change of regime in 1989 (Jensen Butler et al., 1997; Enyedi, 1997; Begg, 1999; Beluszky, 2000). This theory became predominant at European scale in the 1980s, however, this kind of development offered a rapid success only for a minority of urban centres. The wide majority of towns faced, that in most of competitiveness criteria it far behind the leading group of ‘metropoles’ and non-metropolitan centres. The answer was forming out a place-based development path, using a certain part of ’classical’ dimensions of urban competitiveness and mixed it with local strengths, specificities. In our case-study we try to follow the emergence of a new – tourism-based – and in longer term quite successful local strategy, identifying the key actors of the local development coalition (urban regime).