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This study examines the changes undergone by urban centers within Greater Budapest’s extension area, which was annexed to the capital of Hungary in 1950, and which is, with minor modifications, equivalent to the outer zone today. The article compares the development methods of two different political systems: state socialism (i.e., the communist regime) between 1950 and 1990, and post-socialist capitalism after 1990. Over a longer period, the urban development of Budapest has made a long but circular journey from decentralized to a decentralized–disjointed socio-spatial development system, passing through a centrally-planned communist era between 1945 and 1990. Nevertheless, closer examination of this process reveals that several paradigm shifts took place in the design methodology, which was strongly influenced by socio-economic changes. These shifts, layered upon the inherited structure, as well as the neglect or preference of different systems, caused great differences in the development histories of centers on the outskirts. Therefore, we have set up a development typology for the centers on the outskirts by summarizing the planning history at the city level. Based on how well the center was able to incorporate itself into the larger metropolis since 1950, we have distinguished the following development models: the metropolized, the transcript, the rehabilitated, and the urban village model. This typology is extended to include new urban centers that formed during state socialism (between 1950 and 1990) and post-socialist capitalism (since 1990).

The 21st century has brought fundamental changes in the development of cities, with the spread of ICT and the rise of digitalization. The new technologies are increasingly making their mark on urban planning and policy as well. The question of how contemporary urban planning is adapting to new challenges is particularly relevant as neighborhoods built in previous centuries and decades by traditional planning methods are now increasingly confronted with new public and environmental demands. Despite the bad reputation of Budapest’s 8th district, Józsefváros, based on the socio-economic and urban problems it has continuously faced in the past, the neighborhood has become one of the most dynamically developing urban areas in the last decade. From a planning point of view, an exciting area of the district is Szigony Street and its wider surroundings due to the strongly fragmented, heterogeneous urban fabric. Nevertheless, the only high-rise mass housing estate built in Budapest’s historic inner city in the 1960s and 1970s is located there. Our research used a complex methodology (document, content and database analysis, fieldwork, surveys with professionals, and interviews) to explore the planning history of the area’s development. Ultimately, the aim was to identify the most important outcomes and consequences of traditional and contemporary planning and design and whether modern digital planning can make a meaningful contribution to the development of the neighborhood. Our results show that urban planning and development in Budapest are still essentially based on traditional top-down approaches. Digitalization has a role to play primarily in visualization and contextualization but digitalizing of planning alone will not solve problems and past planning mistakes that affect the urban fabric of a neighborhood.