The expansion of new economy among the occupants of Budapest’s office buildings

Abstract

In the last two decade, urban scholars frequently debated the effect of the so-called ‘new economy’ in the urban regeneration processes all over the world. This phenomenon was closely related to the post-industrial transformation of the advanced economies in many cities where former inner-city industrial zones were abandoned and urban policy needed to rehabilitate these valuable areas. Many urban leaders accepted Richard Florida’s conception of the rise of the creative class and attempted to attract firms from the different spheres of new economy like ICT, design, new media or other creative and cultural services for renewing the declining economy of their cities. At the end of the 2000s, many researchers revealed the vulnerability and the volatile nature of the urban regenerations driven by the new economy in several cities. However, there were few empirical studies about this phenomenon in Budapest until now.

Since 2000, modern office space in Budapest has been growing continuously, representing one of the most spectacular urban regeneration processes in the city. The research goal of this paper was to evaluate the contribution of the new economy to the increase in demand for office space. Because official statistical data is insufficient to answer the research question a new database was established from field data collected in 2017. In the process, 232 office building were visited and the names of 4038 firms recorded. From a Hungarian company data base (opten.hu), the main economic activities of these firms were elicited and analysed.

The results show that financial, real estate and creative firms are the main targets of the office building developers. About 33% of firms in the sample work within the field of creative services whereas financial and real estate firms account for 25%. Although some creative services were quite particular among the firms occupying office buildings in Budapest, the ratios of different activities or occupations within the distinct commercial zones in the city were rather similar. This suggests that the classical downtown zones (1st and 5th districts) and the other inner-city office zones on both sides of the Danube share the typical commerce and banking and the renewed inner-city ‘creative type’ activities almost equally.

By the same token, the new-economy zones are not separate from the commercial and banking locations within Budapest. While according to the statistical data there is a growing potential in the creative sector in Budapest, its effects on urban regeneration and transformation are uneven. It would be an important object for future research to investigate to what extent urban development and policy strategies embrace and empower the creative and cultural economy in Budapest’s districts. It is relevant to ask how many social sacrifices (gentrification, partying venues, etc.) should be made for an urban policy of regenerating economic activities.