In Budapest’s offbeat 8th district, gentrification and political pressure go hand in hand — New East Digital Archive

Once known as the city’s scuzzy red-light district, Józsefváros is now a playground for developers and an urban laboratory for Fidesz’s crackdowns on community organising Gentrification has been a buzzword and a bogeyman in urbanism for decades now, a globalised phenomenon that has proved endlessly adaptable to different political climates. The go-to case studies — Berlin, Brooklyn, San Francisco — may tend to be outposts of self-proclaimed “liberal values”, but the process is more malleable than that. In troubled times, we should be asking: what does gentrification look like in a determinedly illiberal state? One such example is contemporary Hungary. Budapest is the seat of power for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his far-right Fidesz party, but it’s also where opposition is concentrated. While Fidesz was the capital’s most supported party in 2018’s parliamentary elections, its party list received only 38 per cent of votes there. Like Paris and its arrondissements, Budapest is divide

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• Mai Chi Dang