Their joint presentation, entitled ‘Regional aspects of complex impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe’ explored the economic and labour market effects of COVID-19 in European regions. Their study, based on an analysis of literature, online news, and regional statistical data, showed that the economic and labour market disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis were significant in 2020, but were followed by a rapid recovery starting in 2021. Most regions of Europe were economically resilient during the COVID-19 crisis, while in some areas (the Mediterranean, the Alps) economic production only returned to pre-crisis levels in 2022, and in other regions the economy grew in all the years examined. Employment recovered more slowly, with significant regional disparities, which were significantly influenced by individual government policies. The crisis had specific effects in certain areas, such as a significant decline in youth employment, the spread of special forms of work, and the prolonged crisis in tourism.

One of the key initiatives of JPI Urban Europe and currently part of the Driving Urban Transition (DUT) Partnership, UERA is bringing together research performing organisations and aims to strengthen, expand and optimise coordination activities and research planning in Europe in the field of urban research and innovation capabilities. Currently UERA brings together 58 European research organisations from 20 different countries. This growing community of researchers, professors, and PhD students organises scientific events and seeks to prepare the ground for joint, interdisciplinary research projects addressing the needs of cities.

On 4-5 April 2022, representatives from HETFA had the pleasure to join online the UERA General Assembly that was held in France at the Paris School of Urban Planning. During the event Gergely Fazekas, Director of HETFA’s Division for Urban and Regional Development delivered a presentation about HETFA’s portfolio to the UERA community and gained important insights into UERA’s future activities.

We look forward to a fruitful collaboration with UERA members and to contributing to a shared vision on European urban research.

More info on UERA is available here.

The development of the Strategy has relied on the suggestions of professional groups and the general public on several occasions. The survey of railway usage habits was carried out by the HETFA Research Institute, between July and September 2020. The aim of the research was to get to know the transport habits of commuters, to identify the advantages and disadvantages related to the use of railways, and to assess the willingness to switch between modes of travel (HÉV, train, bus, car). Based on the nearly 10,000 responses received through the questionnaire and focus group discussions, the comments and suggestions of the users were also incorporated into the text of the Strategy, which is being submitted for social consultation by BFK in February 2021.

You can read about the results of our research on railway usage habits here (only in Hungarian).

More details about BAVS are available here (only in Hungarian).

Photo credit: Dávid Nyitrai (BFK)

The analysis formulating recommendations for national and local governments connected to economic policy defines 16 actions for measures. This includes both abstract regulations, starting from the topic of working conditions at home, through public space renewals and issues of logistics and land use interventions.

Below we present you a short English summary on the main findings of the report.

Click here to read the full Hungarian version of the report.

Background

The reopening is Janus-faced. On the one hand, the world wants to return to the pre-COVID-19 normalcy, and most want to resume life where it was interrupted in early March. Even when restarting business, it is rational to build cooperation on previously established relationships and previous investments. The “other face” of the restart is looking to the future – we are looking for what we can learn from the experiences of the crisis, how we can make our lives and operations more resilient and sustainable in the medium and long term.

The future also depends significantly on what we think today, where social, economic and natural processes will take us, and what individual, community, business and government investments we will make now in the midst of the crisis and beyond. Our present-day view on what future may bring will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The period following the peak of the epidemic should therefore be a period of creative rethinking, opening up for new opportunities and defining the future for individuals, communities, businesses, and the government.

In the case of Hungary, in international comparison, the quick government measures and the disciplined civic behaviour that complied with the restrictive rules made it possible to significantly slow down the spread of the epidemic and to quickly build up the missing health and epidemic management capacities. It has become clear that the ability for taking central and local actions is essential to manage well with the crisis. What is more, it is needed that state and local actors work together in a flexible and disciplined manner, which requires a high level of information flow. The extent of regional and local disparities and the effective management of community resources justify the preservation of local opportunities in territorial administration, which can be derived from the principle of subsidiarity.

In addition to the challenges of the epidemic, climate change has been also an important topic of public discourse. In recent decades, climate change – or, more broadly, sustainability issues – have become increasingly tangible and thus increasingly important in the debates of Western societies. There is no doubt that the current crisis will not solve these long-term problems (it will only divert our attention from it), but as we recover from the current epidemiological crisis, these problems and goals will once again be among the most important policy issues in public discourse.

When designing crisis management and reopening measures it is important to take into account the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Recommendations of the report therefore were drafted in accordance with the findings of the National Sustainable Development Framework Strategy on the sustainability situation and trends in Hungary.

Recommendation for Economic Policy

Instead of applying the traditional Keynesian demand stimulus, the report advises governments in general and governments of small, open economies in particular to manage their resources the following ways:

1. Providing jobs that pave the way for restructuring industries in the long run, increasing flexibility, adaptability and efficiency in the aftermath of the crisis.

• in case of companies, through technology investment and innovation support;
• in case of employees, with trainings and retraining;
• by supporting local collaborations that strengthen the fabric of society.

2. Being involved in the development of infrastructure and public service systems that reduce the vulnerability of exchanges and cooperation by

• supporting local business partnerships;
• increasing the epidemiological safety of public/community infrastructures;
• Improving the quality of local public/community infrastructures.

3. Implementing interventions to prevent the spread of epidemics and limit their spread and to improve the adaptability of society by:

• promoting a healthy, health-conscious lifestyle;
• increasing the proportion of ecologically valuable land and land uses;
• improving the productivity of natural resources (reduction of natural inputs and pollution) by exploiting the potential of the circular economy and the sharing economy;
• mitigating the effects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for the effects of climate change, increasing our adaptive capacities

Recommendations for measures

In the light of the challenges posed by the current epidemic situation and the related economic policy context, the following proposals for measures are formulated, which are not exhaustive of all possibilities, but rather gathered as examples.

1. Active support for part-time work from home
2. Decentralization of leisure capacity
3. Conversion of underutilized / brownfield sites into a public parks
4. Securing wide sidewalks
5. Development of adaptive public spaces
6. Strengthening the adaptability of public transport
7. Actively supporting the online operation of traders and service providers
8. Aid for the purchase of electric vans and vans for freight transport companies
9. Support for building energy investments, energy-saving building renovations
10. Supporting the development of short supply chains in the food economy
11. Support for organic farming in agriculture
12. Support for land use change
13. Encourage domestic and / or regional tourism
14. Strengthening R&I capacities
15. Introduction of eco-taxes, launch of green tax reform
16. Promoting social responsibility and volunteering

Urban public systems and infrastructure

The cityscape and the operation of cities are largely determined by the responses to previous shocks in the past. Even the reaction to classical epidemics has left widespread traces in cities, e.g. they have played a significant role in building drinking water and sanitation. These defence mechanisms have been around for a long time and worked so well, we don’t even realize they exist.

In the current situation caused by COVID-19, the main focus should be put on how a city can effectively prepare for another wave of the epidemic or any other natural disaster that may bring similar problems and challenges. Hence it is important to extend the analysis of the problems and to think in general about increasing the resilience of cities to external shocks, in a concise and uniform way covering all segments of urban life.

In general, diversity, i.e. the diversification of operational possibilities, can be a universal answer. However, reviewing these opportunities for the life of the city as a whole is an extremely complex task, which is why it is important to ensure that diversification and resilience appear as a principle in each of the various sectoral and general urban strategies of the future.

Some examples of concrete measures that can make public infrastructure more resilient:

• Making public spaces adaptable to sudden changes in transport preferences (e.g. converting bus lines into sidewalks for pedestrians)
• Ensuring the smooth and unobstructed operation of pedestrian traffic as much as possible.
• Increasing the number of areas for leisure activities, in a more decentralized way.
• Significant development of the urban cargo system (including home deliveries), both in terms of capacity and management.

Read the original article for a more detailed analysis here (only in Hungarian).

Traffic jams

Another area where the impact of epidemic has been tangible is transportation and mobility. A general and radical decline in transport and mobility needs could be witnessed worldwide in cities. This decline however is not sustainable in the long run – once schools and kindergartens reopen and trade and tourism & hospitality restrictions are lifted, there will suddenly be a resurgence of mobility needs, hence traffic jams in peak times will reappear, too.

The cause of traffic jams and peak times is evident: citizens tend to do certain things at the same time and not evenly distributed throughout the day, e.g. school starts at the exact same time, workplaces tend to be organized based on the same fixed shift times. In addition, since shopping and running errands are done typically after work, we also use these services in similar waves. However, peak hours are expensive, as public transport fleets, road capacity, the number of supermarket cash registers need to be scaled accordingly that results in that they remain unused or underused for most of the day.

In the aftermath of the epidemiological emergency, the seemingly inevitable break of the popularity of public transport raises a fundamental concern, namely that we will not be able to manage the peak load in larger cities. Getting on a bus, with others, especially during peak hours is risky and will remain stigmatised even later on, when real risks will decrease, resulting in an increased number of people opting for using their cars instead. Therefore flattening peak times in all areas of life possible must be a top priority as well as actively supporting the use of smaller vehicles that are closer to the human scale (bikes, e-scooters etc.) as viable alternatives of public transport.

Therefore it is essential that proper incentives and diversionary interventions take place in cities. Here are eight recommendations for flattening peak time, which could also prevent another wave or outbreak of the epidemic and/or the grave road congestions in cities:

• Encouraging the widest possible application of remote work (home office) – either full-time or a few days a week.
• Coordinating the start times of workplaces and schools in a way that the traffic load is more evenly distributed not only in some neighbourhoods of the city but also in the transport network as a whole.
• The fullest possible digitization of business and office administration, thus minimizing the number of errands handled in person.
• Promoting online shopping while providing proper logistics and infrastructure for deliveries.
• Keeping time-band shopping restrictions for the elderly for a longer term to flatten the morning peak (according to the current Hungarian rules, people 65 and above can go shopping between 9 AM and 12 PM only).
• Significant development of the cycling infrastructure, expansion of cycling capacities and walking surfaces, offering an alternative for new and less advanced cyclists as well
• Supporting the spread of other micromobility devices (e.g. e-scooter, e-moped), resolving anomalies in related regulations.
• Maintaining public transport services despite lower user needs, even at the cost of significant losses.

Read the original article for a more detailed analysis here (only in Hungarian).