Urban shrinkage and residential segregation in Hungary

Research on increasing social problems of shrinking cities is abound. Studies, however, have mainly focused on metropolitan processes, leaving the case of shrinking small and medium sized towns uncovered. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap by measuring residential segregation level of a disadvantaged social group (uneducated, unemployed, active age population) in small and medium sized towns. The study relies on micro data of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office's 2001 and 2011 Census to calculate exposure-based segregational index scores. This segregational index measures the gap between actual and maximum social exposure of the disadvantaged social groups to other social groups at census tract level. Data shows that although the urban population of the disadvantaged social group halved during the decade from 2001 to 2011, Hungarian cities and towns were affected by this shrinkage to varying degrees. The capital and cities with county rights experienced a significant decrease in the number of disadvantaged groups contrary to small and medium-sized towns. The calculation of residential segregational index scores revealed, that this disadvantaged social group tends to be living in mixed neighbourhoods, and can not be seen as residentially segregated. Although the degree of residential segregation is typically low in Hungarian urban areas, significant polarization has taken place during a single decade. In those settlements where the degree of residential segregation was low in 2001, the segregational index score tended to get even lower by 2011. This group of urban settlements consists of various subgroups, such as suburban towns characterised by dynamically growing population, capital city districts with dropping population and resort towns (famous spa towns: Heviz, Zalakaros, Harkany). At the other end of the spectrum, urban areas characterized by higher segregational index scores in 2001, experienced the intensification of residential segregation in 2011. In the same year, the number of urban areas with high degrees of spatial segregation also grew above 200% of the urban average. All in all, both the extent of spatial segregation and the number of segregated urban areas have grown in Hungary between 2001 and 2011. The common characteristics of these increasingly segregated urban areas is that they have a modestly declining population (10-25 thousand inhabitants) and limited roles in public service provision (health, education). They also tend to be centers of inner and outer peripheral areas. The most striking result to emerge from the data is that residential segregation in Hungary is not a problem of shrinking cities, rather of small and medium sized towns. In contrast to the experience of well-known shrinking cities (Rust Belt cities), the degree of spatial segregation of the disadvantaged social group is decreasing in Hungarian cities (capital and cities with country rights).