The aim of the workshop is to present for Hungarian stakeholders, researchers and municipal leaders the latest initiatives in functional urban planning in Hungary and to get an overview of European achievements and future ESPON research opportunities in this topic, sharing thoughts in the framework of a professional discussion.

Due to the extreme fragmentation of the Hungarian settlement structure and the intensification of agglomeration processes, Hungarian spatial development policy supports to focus on larger units, e.g. the planning of functional urban areas. As a result, a process has been initiated for an integrated approach to solving problems of spatial importance identified jointly by local actors. The aim of this planning process is to result in a more effective service provision in a given urban area, to improve the quality of life of the local population and to encourage the city and its surrounding area, or possibly two or more cities, to work together in different areas (e.g. labour market, vocational training and cooperation between economic operators, organisation of public transport).

Currently, there is no uniformly applied functional urban area definition in the Hungarian development policy system, instead there are several different methodologies. It is therefore an exciting opportunity to look at European examples, which can be found, among other things, in the relevant ESPON research results. The workshop would focus on the latest results, as well as on the future research opportunities offered by ESPON related to this topic, to support the national decision-making efficiency.

The event will be held in Hungarian only

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