Public space quality

The quality of public spaces cannot be read from a map alone — it requires field walks, direct spatial experience and observation of pedestrian use. This article summarises the main lessons of this qualitative diagnosis, then links them to the district's other structural problems.

1. Public space or traffic surface?

The study of public space quality is built on a qualitative methodology: it foregrounds the experience gathered during field walks. The actual use of public spaces, the spatial experience, and the presence of pedestrian and community functions are factors that can be examined primarily through direct experience. The analysis therefore focuses on interpreting how public spaces function and on the problems relevant to urban life.

The general picture is clear: a significant part of Pestszentlőrinc-Pestszentimre's public spaces works not as urban space but as transport infrastructure. This fundamentally limits the emergence of local community life and mixed use — precisely the processes on which the scale of a compact city depends.

2. Few urban spaces, mixed quality

A city's public-space network is fundamentally defined by its urban and central spaces: these are the nodes of the network, where encounters concentrate. District 18 has relatively few urban public-space elements, and their quality presents a mixed picture.

Kossuth Lajos Square is the district's largest square, where traditional square and park functions mix. Thanks to the proximity of Üllői Road, the Town Hall, Szarvas Csárda Square and several secondary education institutions, it has a genuinely urban, community-building role. The Kondor Béla Promenade, the local high street of the Havanna estate, works just as effectively — almost all the estate's services and hospitality venues are organised around it.

One of the district's main service centres, Szarvas Csárda Square, fulfils this role less well. Although in recent years there have been efforts to renovate it, the area still functions primarily as a transport hub.

3. The traffic focus and the missing street life

The dominance of traffic is characteristic at several points. Walking the streets, one feels the predominance of parking, which — beyond townscape and road-safety concerns — hampers comfortable, barrier-free pedestrian movement and the spread of street life. The oversized carriageways further worsen the situation: mainly on Üllői Road and at several junctions, valuable areas are subordinated to — typically motorised — traffic, while along several other street sections there is not even a built pavement. One cause of these dysfunctions is the lack of curbside management: the strips between the carriageway and the pavement took shape not at a human scale but haphazardly.

The other cause of the low intensity of street life is the absence of ground-floor functions, especially in the suburban and newer residential areas. A significant part of the buildings carries a purely residential function, so the shops, services and hospitality venues that would generate continuous presence in public spaces are missing. Connected to this is the low proportion of active frontages: the street fronts are often closed, set back or visually inactive. As a result, public spaces do not become organising elements of urban life but remain spaces of transitional use.

4. Why is public space an economic question too?

The maintenance and development of public spaces is also significantly affected by the district's low development intensity. In the suburban, low-density areas the network is extensive, while the group of users tied to each street is relatively small. As a result, the per capita maintenance and development cost is higher, which reduces the return on and economic justification of interventions.

This is a problem especially on lower-traffic residential streets, where the cost of improvements is not proportional to the expected intensity of use. Low density thus poses a structural constraint on the qualitative development of public spaces — and this is partly why the compact development of cities can be economically and financially justified.

5. The interconnected system of problems

The situation assessment brings out the structural and operational problems that together hinder compact functioning. The examined dimensions — transport structure, settlement structure and services, and public space quality — sustain a low-intensity, fragmented urban system not in isolation but by reinforcing one another, which increases the compulsion to travel and weakens local urban life.

• Low-density, poorly mixed structure: the suburban development and the predominance of the residential function spatially separate urban functions and limit the local availability of everyday services. The existing denser residential areas are not organically connected to the main transport axes, so they do not function as genuine points of density.
• Structural transport deficiencies: the network is strongly radial, the cross-directional connections are weak. The railway lines run along the district's periphery, the stations are not integrated with other modes, the tram plays mainly a feeder role, and the cycling infrastructure is incomplete and island-like — all of which reinforces individual car use.
• Limited service system: the local hubs have only a narrow catchment and do not function as city-wide sub-centres. Many services are missing or undersized, and the larger shopping and entertainment options lie outside the district — orienting the population towards other neighbourhoods.
• Weak public-space functioning: the predominance of traffic, the deficient pedestrian infrastructure and the absence of active ground-floor functions result in low intensity of use, which the low development density compounds economically.

Importantly, these problems are not exclusive to District 18. Low development density, functional separation, and deficiencies in the transport and service systems show a similar pattern in several of Budapest's peripheral districts — although their intensity and combination differ from area to area. The district's situation is thus part of a broader urban-structural problem set whose treatment also requires a Budapest-scale approach.