Successful rehabilitation or painful un-homing?

Abstract: Displacement – the process when residents are forced away from their living space – is one of the most pressing urban development issues of present times. Gentrification used as an urban policy tool to provide support for urban renewal and to carry out the rehabilitation of cities is the main displacement-inducing mechanism. However, there is an existing intellectual bias, which leads to an inequality in academic research. Scholars are mostly concerned with the description and investigation of gentrification and not with processes of displacement. This thesis aims to partially fill this gap in existing research and investigates the causes and outcomes of gentrification-induced displacement in the 8th District of Budapest, Hungary. In the thesis I argue that displacement is a serious issue and must be moderated through regulatory tools and adequate urban policing. Applying Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City perspective, the study focuses on how the district government is managing displacement. The data of the research is gathered through semi-structured interviews and the analysis of urban planning documents. The findings show that while decision-makers are aware of the problem and consider displacement as a negative process, this view is not always applied in the public policy and the redevelopment projects of the district.