The aim of the National Spatial Development Concept (NSDC) – in accordance with the National Development Policy Concept (NDPC) – is to set out the country’s spatial development policy objectives, principles and order of priorities, creating the opportunity for the consistent endorsement of regional considerations in the elaboration of all departmental policies and the national and regional programmes.

The main function of spatial development policy is to bring about spatially coordinated and efficient functioning of the country and balanced, sustainable territorial development, as well as the mitigation of regional exclusion.

There are six fundamental pillars to the spatial development policy: (1) Centralized intervention in regional development, (2) regionally harmonized policy and national development strategies and programs, (3) regional structuring, (4) development policy at regional, county, district and other territorial levels, (5) rural development, and (6) development of towns and villages.

In addition to the formation of regional policy and in the course of reaching targets with respect to the principles formulated in the NDPC, the following basic principles – significant from a regional point of view – must be applied: subsidiarity and decentralization; local and regional approach, following real spatial organization; system approach, programming, integrated developments; sustainability, security; openness, partnership; transparency, monitoring and evaluation.

The NSDC describes the vision for the country and its regions

The goal is to bring to life a harmonized and sustainable social, economic and environmental spatial structure and regional system that creates an organization of areas – each with it’s own face and identity and building on its own local resources – that organically and effectively integrate into Europe as a whole, and between which there is no regional disparity in terms of the publ ic services and living conditions that determine the basic opportunities available to a society.

The document defines the overall objectives of regional development policy until 2020 which are as follows:

1. Regional competitiveness
2. Territorial convergence
3. Sustainable territorial development and protection of heritage
4. Deepening Hungary’s integration into Europe
5. Decentralization and regionalism

The document consists of the medium-term national territorial objectives until 2013 as well. In order to realize the vision and the overall objectives it is necessary from a national point of view to fulfil the decisive regional objectives, which are listed below:

1. Development of a highly competitive Budapest metropolitan area
2. Strengthening development poles that dynamize regions and development of system of interconnections forming a network of towns
3. Levelling up the internal and external peripheries, backward regions
4. Integrated development areas and themes of national signficance (Balaton area; the River Tisza area; the Danube Riverside including the whole of the sandy Danube-Tisza interfluve); integrated territorial usage of the national reserve of thermal water and increasing the share of renewable energy resources).
5. Strengthening the development of border regions and cooperation between cross-border regions
6. Spatially integrated developmental priorities for rural areas
This part defines development priorities of the different types of rural area:
a. areas rich in valuable natural and cultural landscape;
b. small farm areas;
c. the Danube-Tisza interfluve
d. regions of small villages
f. areas with large Roma populations.

In order for the overall spatial development objectives of the NSDC and national spatial targets to be achieved, the various governmental policies must bring their own powers to bear. The spatial priorities formulated in these p olicies are contained in the accompanying document about the National Spatial Development Concept.

The fifth chapter of the NSDC contains the developmental direction of the instruments and institutions serving to validate the spatial development objectives.

The last chapter of the document deals with the developmental strategies of the Hungarian planning-statistical regions, which strategies take into consideration the objectives formulated in the NSDC as compulsory frameworks.

The National Spatial Development Concept defines Hungary’s spatial vision, the long-term spatial policy objectives necessary for achieving that vision, and medium-term spatial objectives, outlines spatial policy priorities, sets out the conditions for institutions and instruments of policy implementation, and contains conceptual objectives for the individual regions. The document is adopted by Parliamentary Decree 97/2005 (XII.25.)

VÁTI Hungarian Nonprofit Company for Regional Development and Town Planning
Hungary
http://www.vati.hu
Mr Géza Salamin (Head of Unit, Unit of Spatial Policy, analysis and evaluation), tel. +36 1 224 3268

01/01/2005

policy

Urban Policy