Zoltán Bajmócy

Beszélünk a részvételről… Megyei jogú városok fejlesztési dokumentumainak elemzése az érintettek részvételének aspektusából

The present paper provides an analysis of the participation of stakeholders in the urban planning processes of Hungarian cities. It focuses on the real opportunities stakeholders have in becoming active agents of urban planning processes and the obstacles they face. For the purpose of our evaluation we build on the arguments of the capability approach of Amartya Sen. In order to assess citizens’ freedom of agency we use Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation and Gaventa’s power cube. Changes in the regulations of Hungarian urban planning imply that, contrary to the former unified rules of participation, serious differences may emerge between the cities. In accordance with the new regulations, all the large Hungarian cities had to renew their major planning documents during 2013 and 2014. This provided the starting point for our empirical analysis. We analysed the Stakeholder Reconciliation Plans, the Urban Development Concepts and the Integrated Urban Development Strategies of 23 Hungarian large cities (cities with county rights). We carried out qualitative content analysis to shed light on the contraries between the surface and the deep structures of these documents with regard to participation. We conclude that for most of the stakeholders the forms of participation occurring in the Hungarian urban planning practice do not provide the opportunity to further their own ends. On the contrary, participation deprives stakeholders of real opportunities and thus results in “unfreedoms”. This implies a decrease in social well-being. Many of the stakeholders lack the freedom of participation as a component of their well-being. Moreover, stakeholders are hindered in using participation as a means to further the emergence of more desirable development outcomes in the urban context.

Eszközöktől a jóllétig. A helyi gazdaságfejlesztés körvonalai a képességszemléletben

Most authors agree that the goal of local economic development is increasing welfare, standard of living or the quality of life of local inhabitants. But when we look for a rationale of well-being (or welfare, standard of living, quality of life) we cannot find any tangible definition in the literature on local economic development. Mostly, the practice of, and the theorising about, local economic development pay attention only to the means of well-being. For instance: How can competitiveness or regional innovation capacity be increased, how can the local economy be restructured, how can less-developed regions be developed? Means are in the focus of mainstream theories of local economic development because according to those theories, there is a positive linear relationship between means and well-being: improvement of means results automatically in higher well-being. We call mainstream theories of local economic development means-oriented because their focus is on means and not ends (well-being). In opposition to the means-oriented approaches, we try to establish a model of local economic development which is based on the notion of wellbeing, based on the capability approach formulated by Amartya Sen. We had two research questions. (1) What are the goals, the processes and methods of local economic development according to the capability approach? (2) What are the consequences of the capability-based local economic development for the practice of local economic development in Hungary? In our paper, we argue that the goal of local economic development is the enhancement of capabilities of local inhabitants. The process of local economic development consists of three steps. (1) Identifying relevant capabilities with deliberative participation. (2) Analysing the relationship between means and relevant capabilities. (3) Iteration of the previous two steps. We suggest that it is possible to base local economic development on the capability approach, which focuses both on means – and the circumstances of the use of means. This capability-based approach creates an openly value-driven and community-centred model. An essential part of this approach is to specify the valuable capabilities and most important values that come along with deliberative participation. We show that local development should not focus only on one aspect (for instance economic growth) and that the information taken into consideration in current practice is insufficient for a successful local development process. So, our perspective provides guidelines to broaden the informational base for decisions on local development.

Regionális és helyi gazdaságfejlesztés az evolúciós gazdaságföldrajz szemszögéből

Since economic agents, as well as policymakers, are not fully informed and their decisions are embedded into a sequence of former events, the ability of learning gains significant importance in economies facing challenges of transformation. Therefore, evolutionary economic thinking is especially important in Hungary, since behavioural patterns that had evolved in the centrally planned economy might have survived the transition to a market economy. This heritage of the socialist era did not disappear suddenly, and still has an impact on regional dynamics. Industries and regions have suffered from the effect of transition after the change of the political system: the locations of heavy industry declined immediately after the collapse of the socialist block’s market, foreign-owned firms became the main engine of economic growth – but only in a limited number of regions. Failures of centralised decision-making (e.g. agrarian reforms) have affected regions in a similar way. We believe that an evolutionary economic geography framework should be adopted in order to understand regional dynamics during the post-1989 period. Economic transformation in these models is based equally on learning and innovation as well as on local institutions and routines inherited from the past, which will all provide new insights for further research. However, major questions regarding the theory and practice also have to be discussed from the evolutionary perspective. For example, what is the logical relation between regional competitiveness and local institutions? Does competitiveness derive from institutional standards or, on the contrary, is economic success expected to change the rules? The present paper consists of two parts. First, the main concepts of evolutionary economic geography are introduced, and the place of evolutionary thinking within economic geography is discussed. Second, we shed light on one of the basic questions of regional and local economic development from an evolutionary aspect: What is the relation between local institutions, learning, and the effects of political interventions?