The environment of a settlement can not be examined only by analysing the main objects of environmental protection (air, water, noise, living nature and soil, etc). Specific interactions of these elements come forward in cities. The city itself is a pollution source and suffers from concentrated pollutions.
Distribution and rate of different environmental pollutions (air, soil, water, etc) depend on the structure of the city and on the processes in the structure (mainly land use and transport).
Traditionally tasks of shaping the environment of the cities are led by technical speciality of urban planning in our region. This is the main reason of limited scope and effect of environmental institutions. Operation of environmental institution were reduced to those tasks in which regulation or handling of emission were possible on local level (points of pollution sources of air, water, control on noise sources, defender forests, etc). This could be changed very soon according to trends in Europe and USA.

According to international running basic dilemma in Hungary too in what rate and with which tools could cities control fulfilments of private developments.
Control of market by regulation is not enough there is a great need to have city development concepts, programmes orienting market by preliminary information. Although cities have to play active role in co-ordination in realization of main projects.
This is more important in developments and services in which separation of common weal and private interest is difficult. (construction on new development areas, or city rehabilitation), or in cases where harmonization of these interests – amongst them environmental interests which are considered dominant interest in city planning – could be solved in an optimal way only by handling big coherent systems (eg. urban transport).

Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Hungary
http://www.bme.hu
Mr Gábor Locsmándi (PhD), tel. +36 1 463 3848

01/01/2002

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Mr Gábor Locsmándi

research

Urban Policy

Urban environment