Gabor Locsmandi, Gabor Péteri, and Béla Varga-Otvös, Urban Planning and Capital Investment Financing in Hungary, 2000, 109 pp.

This study examines urban development in six Hungarian municipalities of different sizes, positions, and locations. It focuses on four types of local government activities: urban planning and regulations, local government property management, utilization of municipal service delivery rights and competencies, and local government capital investment.

Urban planning, regulations, and administrative powers may have an impact on local revenue-raising and should thus be regarded as assets. Similarly, municipal service delivery rights can be utilized in such a way that private partnership leads to improved infrastructure and better services. Local revenue policy measures are also assets. Urban development should be based on the harmonized use of these types of assets. Local governments with well-integrated assets management will be able to improve their services and their financial position.

Urban development is a complex activity that requires cooperation among various types of professionals (property and real estate managers, urban planners and regulators, local government and company finance experts). These experts do not communicate easily, and local government administrators often fail to support cooperation among them.

Local Government Brief, (A Quarterly Newsletter of the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative/Open Society Institute).